


^ 










^ 



I 



c 



ASKET 



OF 



REMINISCENCES, 



BY 



HENRY S. FOOTE, 



WASHINGTON, D. C: 

CHRONICLE PUBLISHING COMPANY. 
1874. 

i 






60799 



£1 



PREFACE. 



The author of the Reminiscences contained in this volume has lit- 
tle to say in regard to them by way of proem. They were written to 
amuse a few hours of the summer and autumn of the present year, and 
appeared almost daily in the columns of the Washington Chron- 
icle precisely as they were originally thrown oil* from his pen. 
Though very sensible of their deficiencies in point of literary finish, 
he has not judged it expedient to modify them in any essential par- 
ticular ; and he will, indeed, be highly gratified if they shall now 
be read by those into whose hands they may chance to fall with as 
much interest as they seemed originally to awaken. 

He has no apology to make for certain rather unkind strictures in- 
dulged in regard to several individuals upon whose character and con- 
duct lie has undertaken to remark. He has chosen to speak the uuvar 
nished truth, both as to men and things; and he is quite well satisfied 
that, sooner or later, all considerate and impartial men will come to the 
conclusion that in doing so he is not justly subject to censure. Should 
there be those who shall choose to join issue with him as to facts herein 
narrated they will now have it in their power to do so under circum- 
stances altogether convenient, to them. 



Casket of Reminiscences 



REMINISCENCE No. I. 

JAMES MONROE — JOHN QUINCY ADAMS — CHIEF JUSTICE MAR- 
SHALL — HENRY CLAY— ROBERT J. WALKER — MR. WEBSTER- 
JENNY LIND. 

Aii opinion has long prevailed that such as have been 
blessed with more than ordinary multiplicity of years, and 
whose opportunities of observing the course of public 
affairs have been at all favorable — so long, at least, as the 
mens shim in sano cofpore shall be vouchsafed to them — 
may he reasonably presumed to hold in the storehouse of 
memory many facts, the accurate and impartial recital of 
which ^Pght he expected to prove more or less instructive 
and entertaining to persons of a more limited experience. 
It is doubtless upon some such notion as this, whether 
well or ill founded, that I have been persuaded to enter 
a held already in part occupied by others, whose diverse 
merits I have no wish to call in question. Not purposing 
to write either history or biography in a regular manner, 
I shall probably not be subjected to anything like acri- 
monious criticism if I shall in a great measure disregard 
mere order of time, and describe such scenes as may 
casually suggest themselves to my recollection, in a very 
desultory manner, and with something of the unaffected 
simplicity of oral narrative. 



2 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

It chanced that I was in the city of Washington during 
the latter part of the winter of 1824-'5, having been at- 
tracted thither, as many thousands besides had been, by 
the interesting scenes of one kind or another known to be 
there enacting. The Electoral Colleges in the States having 

o o o 

failed to give to either of the four Presidential candidates 
a majority of votes, upon the House of Representatives in 
Congress was devolved the duty of selecting a President 
from the three candidates who had been the recipients 
of the largest number of electoral votes. After an in- 
tensely interesting struggle Mr. John Quincy Adams was 
chosen, and preparations were made for his inauguration. 
This took place in the hall of the House of Representa- 
tives, and I had the honor to witness this ceremony, which 
to me at the time was full of novelty and interest. Mi-. 
Adams seemed to me to be then quite a robust man, and 
of a far more animated and hopeful aspect than he was in 
after years. When he advanced across the floor of the 
hall and received the volume containing the oath of office 
from the hands of the venerable Chief-Justice Marshall, 
his step was firm, and 1/% manner ^vas marked with a 
placid dignity very imposing indeed. He e^J^ciated 
the oath in a clear audjJisjChcHf tone, and ascended the 
Speaker's chair for the purpose of delivering therefrom 
his inaugural address. Then it was that he seemed to me 
to evince some embarrassment, and the [taper from which 
he read rattled in his tremulous hands to such an extent 
that the noise from it was distinctly heard by auditors in 
the gallery of the House, where I was myself located. 

When the address was brought to a close, most of those 
present proceeded to the White House in order to take 
leave of Mr. Monroe, who was about to set off for his private 
residence in Virginia. Curiosity led me thither. I was 
much struck with the very healthy and vigorous appear- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 6 

ance of this venerable man. Though I had seen him often 
before, I had never approached him so nearly as on this 
occasion. His appearance and manners were full of life 
and cordiality. His face wore a kindly and genial smile, 
and he was evidently rejoicing inwardly at being relieved 
at last from the toils and cares of office. I saw Mr. Adams 
also in the throng of those who were eagerly pressing 
forward to shake hands with his predecessor. He seemed 
to be wholly unnoticed, and to be in a gravely meditative 
mood. I was anxious to see him more distinctly, and I 
urged my way to his whereabouts perhaps a little indeli- ________ 

cately. When I beheld him nearly I found that he was (xJUw 
actually weeping. The tear-drops, which were constantly ^J o^ 
distilling from his eyelids, he ever and anon wiped away £&^w. 
with a white linen handkerchief. The spectacle which I ^ tur 
beheld reminded me very forcibly of what I had read °f ik^^v 
the laughing and the weeping philosopher of the olden ^^ „ 
time. Here I saw a President of the United States de- ^ (jLx 
parting from office to all appearance replete with hilarity c^Jhy^ 
and joyousness, while he who was presently to till his place UaM*+ > ' 
seemed smitten with unappeasable anguish and melan- < W ar ^ > & 
choly. I did not then know what I soon after learned, ^_^f ^ 
that the tear-shedding which had so painfully attracted 'f^Li 
my attention was with Mr. Adams but an "ordinary in- ^ 
undation," and the result of an optical distemper of very ____, 

long standing. 

So soon as the leave-taking was over at the White 
House, a very numerous body of citizens flocked to Mr. 
Adams' private residence, in order to partake of a sumpt- 
uous banquet which had been prepared for their enjoy- 
ment. Now, in connection with this same banquet, which 
I did not attend, there has been buzzing about my cranium 
ever since a not unpleasant reminiscence. When the 
banqueters returned from Mr. Adams' house, several of 



4 CASKET OF REMIXieCEXCES. 

them mentioned to me, in very kind terms, the hospitable 
attentions of which they had. been recipients, and, among 
other things, spoke in language of warm commendation 
of the two sons of Mr. Adams, who had superintended the 
distribution of creature comforts to the numerous quests 
assembled around the table, which was literally groaning 
with all the choicest viands which the Washington market 
could supply. These young gentlemen were described as 
each of them holding in his dexter hand a bright silver 
ladle, with which he lavishly apportioned to the eager 
visitants the most delicious oyster soup, dipped out of a 
splendid china bowl of most gigantic proportions, which 
sat smoking before them. The elder of these scions of a 
noble stock I had incidentally met at the Bedford Springs, 
in Pennsylvania, the summer before. I regretted to see 
his untimely decease reported in the newspapers a few 
years later. To his younger brother, Charles Francis 
Adams, now so creditably known on botli sides of the At- 
lantic, I had the honor of being casually introduced one 
night at the theater in Washington. I saw him again, 
in company with his brother John, at the inaugural ball, 
which took place upon the evening of the 4th of March. 
Our slight personal acquaintance has never been sub- 
sequently renewed, nor do I suppose that he now remem- 
bers that wc ever met, I have been, though, for many 
years, a diligent observer of his course, and while I have 
not always been aide to concur with him upon the public 
questions which have been from time to time agitated, 
his intellectual powers have ever commanded my respect, 
and I have never at all distrusted either his integrity or 
his patriotism. 

It is well known to all the readers of our national his- 
tory that the administration of Mr. Adams had to en- 
counter much and tierce opposition in various quarters. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. O 

He and all the prominent members of his Cabinet were 
objects of unsparing denunciation, and even sometimes 
also of ridicule. All sorts of accusations were preferred 
against himself and Mr. Clay in particular, and they were 
freely denounced as the upholders of corruption and the 
enemies of freedom. Nearly a half century has now passed 
away since that Administration was brought to a close. 
The prejudices and passions connected with the period in 
which it had its course are almost absolutely extinct, and 
now "returning Justice, lifting aloft her scale," attests to 
all the generations of the future that the Republic has 
never known a time in which public men of greater vir- 
tue and wisdom occupied the high places of civil trust, or 
when all the concerns of the Government were more suc- 
cessfully and economically administered, than between the 
4th of March, 1825, and the 4th of March, 1829. 

Of Mr. Clay I shall have a good deal to say hereafter. 
Mr Adams I never knew intimately. I saw him for the 
last time at his own house, in Washington, on the 1st day 
of January, 1848, and had a short conversation with him. 
He was then very pale and thin, and I left him with the 
impression that he could not long survive. When lie fell 
suddenly in the House of Representatives, a few weeks 
later, while in the act of delivering an eloquent and 
powerful speech upon a question which involved his feel- 
ings very deeply, there was probably not a member of Con- 
gress of any party who did not feel the most poignant dis- 
tress and chagrin. 

Mr. Adams Avas, upon the whole, one of the most re- 
markable men that our country has produced. Bonest 3 
warm-hearted, and fearless, he disdained to conceal his 
opinions upon any subject involving the welfare of his 
country or the happiness of his kind. His mind was by 
nature active, vigorous, and capable of the highest cul- 



(3 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

ture. His early education, under the direction of his ven- 
erable father, had been most judicious and complete, and 
he had devoted almost his whole life to the acquisition of 
knowledge of every kind, both theoretic and practical. 
He was a ripe scholar, and was thoroughly versed in eveiy 
department of modern literature. His pen, as a political 
controversial writer, was one oi the most potential that 
the country has known. He does not seem to have 
gained much reputation as a speaker in the earlier stages 
of his public career. When in the national Senate, before 
he had yet attained middle age, he is not known to 
have dis jguished himself as a debater on any noted oc- 
casion. But on his becoming a member of the House of 
Representatives, several years subsequent to his defeat for 
re-election to the Presidency, he discovered powers of dis- 
cussion for which no one had ever before that period given 
him credit. I very much doubt whether a more accom- 
plished and effective speaker was ever heard in that bodj r . 
His command of language was unlimited ; his knowledge 
of public affairs was such as perhaps no other American 
statesman has ever possessed, which gave him a great ad- 
vantage over those with whom he had from time to time 
to conflict; his memory of past transactions was never at 
fault ; and when he felt himself to be in the right, he 
feared not the weapons of any adversary. His powers of 
sarcasm and denunciation were positively terrific, and no 
man ever dared to awakeii'Jiis ire whom he did not speed- 
ily compel to regret his temerity. His superiority to all 
the flimsy and tinseled declaimers of the period, who, with 
a vain and silly ambition, sought to draw him into con- 
flict, was so conspicuous that even those who disliked him 
most were constrained to recognize him as a victor in every 
such conflict. Mr. Adams seemed to belong to a class 
of persons of whom only a few have made their appear- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. I 

ance either in ancient or modern times, in whom imagi- 
nation, conjoined with retentive memory and fervid sen- 
sibilities, grew more and more vigorous and luxuriant up 
even to the end of their mortal career. Thus was it with 
the venerable author of the Apocalypse, with Plato, with 
Sophocles, and with Edmund Burke. On the day of Mr: 
Adams' lamented decease, I do not at all doubt that he 
was the most splendid and picturesque rhetorician then 
living ; and he is known to have often indulged in poeti- 
cal effusions, both of a grave and sportive character, which 
would have done credit to an Ovid or a Tibullus. A day 
or so before his death he wrote a beautiful little sonnet 
to a charming young lady of his acquaintance, which 
was shown to me by Caleb Lyon, of Lyondale— a copy 
of it having been given to him by Mr. Adams himself- 
with the sweetness and beauty of which I was much 
impressed. 

Robert J. Walker told me more than once that Mr. 
Adams, several years anterior to 1844, predicted in his 
hearing and in a manner exceedingly solemn and earnest, 
that in less than twenty years African slavery would be 
extinguished in the United States— adding that he ex- 
pected himself to witness its overthrow. 

A few days subsequent to the decease of Mr. Adams, 
on a convivial occasion, when all present were lamenting 
that event, and commending his social and domestic vir- 
tues, as well as his extraordinary ability, I recollect Mr. 
Webster to have said: "Well, gentlemen, all you say is 
doubtless true; Mr. Adams was a very remarkable 
man; no one can doubt his talents or his moral worth; 
but you will permit me to say that I do not recol- 
lect that tins gentleman ever gave utterance to a truly 
national sentiment after he took his seat in the House of 
Representatives/' 'This was almost the only time that I 



8 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

ever knew this liberal-spirited and wonderfully gifted 
man to express himself, in private converse, in terms of 
decided decrial of any cotemporary statesman dead or 
living. 

The incidental mention of Mr. Webster's name brings 
up in my memory a rather curious and interesting scene 
which I witnessed in the summer of 1850. The Compro- 
mise struggle, which had been in progress for some months, 
had just terminated. The dangers which were supposed 
to menace the destruction of the Federal Union estab- 
lished by our. lathers, it was hoped, had been effectually 
obviated by a wise and salutary " plan of adjustment,*' 
as I remember George M. Dallas to have called it, and 
the extremists of either section, it was believed, had been 
defeated in their respective schemes of mischief. All 
Washington was rejoicing over this noble result, and pa- 
triotic men of all parties were reveling in a sort of frater- 
nizing jubilee. Next to Mr. Clay himself, Mr. Webster 
was supposed to have signalized himself in this ever- 
memorable conflict, and from, the day when he had de- 
livered his celebrated 7th of March speech he had been 
receiving every hour, in one form or another, the tokens 
of public gratitude. This was perhaps the most happy 
moment of his life. He had efficiently contributed to 
save the Union from ruin and his native land from blood- 
sbed and devastation, by aiding in the bringing of men 
of genuine national sentiment into manly and heroic com- 
bination for the overthrow of sectional factionists, alike 
of the South and of the "North. He had risked his own 
beloved popularity in that contest, perhaps more seriously 
than any other man ; but the Republic was safe, and his 
own great soul was full of gladness and gratitude. Just 
about this time the Russian Minister of that period, the 
well-known Mr. Bodisco, summoned the august Secretary 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 9 

of State under President Fillmore and the members of the 
two Committees on Foreign Affairs of Congress to a din- 
ner at his mansion in Georgetown, to do appropriate 
honor to the birthday of the Emperor Nicholas, which 
was then at hand. Several of the new Cabinet of Mr. 
Fillmore I recollect also to have been present on this oc_ 
casion, and, among others, Mr. Stuart, of Virginia, then 
Secretary of the Interior. Seldom has a more splendid 
banquet been spread, and greatly was it enjoyed by all 
who had been invited to partake of it. Mr. Webster of- 
fered the toast in honor of his Imperial Majesty, and ac- 
companied it with one of the most dignified, conciliatory, 
and truly statesmanlike speeches I ever listened to. 
Neither Pericles nor Tacitus, in their most inspired mo- 
ments, could have given a more noble and felicitous ex- 
pression to stately and elevated thoughts and sentiments 
concerning the happiness and true glory of governments 
and of peoples. V hen the dinner was over, Mr. Web- 
ster, in his most bland and courteous manner, approach- 
ing Mr. Stuart and myself, invited us to accompany him 
in his carriage back to Washington, suggesting that he 
would he pleased if we Would go with him also to the 
opera, where 'Jenny Lind was to regale, for the last time, 
a Washington audience with her charming; minstrelsy. 
There was, of course, no refusing such an invitation, so 
we hurried forward with glowing anticipations of enjoy- 
ment to the appointed scene of entertainment. On arriv- 
ing at the door of the opera-house Mr. Webster entered 
in his grandest manner, and slowly ]>;issed down the cen- 
tral aisle of the building. It chanced that Jenny Lind 
was then on the platform, and was about to commence 
singing our inspiring national anthem, "The Star-Spangled 
Banner." So soon as Mr. Webster's approach was per- 
ceived the assemblage spontaneously broke forth with 



10 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES 

tempestuous applause, evidently recognizing it as a re- 
markable coincidence that the renowned defender of the 
Constitution should have happened to come in at the very 
moment that the sacred emblem of the nation's liberty 
and union was on the eve of being rapturously apostro- 
phized in song. So soon as the audience settled down 
into quietude the inspiring tones of Jenny Lind's mar- 
velous voice were heard. Never, either before or since, 
have I been made so overwhelmingly sensible as I was on 
that occasion of the commingled power of music and sen- 
timent. The whole concourse really appeared to be elec- 
trified. Mr. Webster was so transported with delight 
that lie actually seemed almost to become unconscious of 
the presence of others, and hummed very distinctly in 
unison with the varying tones of the songstress. All the 
enthusiasm of his soul had evidently been kindled into 
flame; all his patriotic pride had been awakened, and his 
whole moral nature appeared to have been "touched and 
inspired" by the seraphic sounds to which he was an 
enraptured listener. When the song was over, Mr. Web- 
ster — as if impelled by a sense of official duty to offer, in 
the name of the great nation which he felt himself enti- 
tled in some degree to represent on this occasion, the 
formal tribute of its respect — rose from his seat, and, step- 
ping forward to a central position between the audience 
and the platform upon which Jenny Lind was standing, 
made her one of the most honoring and majestic bows 
I ever beheld. The amiable and accomplished recipient 
of a homage as unexpected as it must have been gratify- 
ing, manifested something of a g'racefnl and blushing 
embarrassment, but conrtesied notwithstanding most pro- 
foundly in response, upon which the assembled multitude 
gave vent to their delight in most vociferous applause. 
A second bow was administered, with precisely similar 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 11 

accompaniments. A third one was tendered, when the 
charming "Swedish Nightingale," as she was called, in- 
continently took wing and became invisible to our fond 
and admiring eyes, perchance forever! The newspapers 
next morning duly noted this interesting incident, and, 
much to their credit be it spoken, made none but the, 
kindest comments thereupon. Certainly, all who had the 
happiness to be present that night withdrew to their 
homes both loving and honoring more highly than they 
had ever done before the high-souled and grandly-endowed 
statesman of Massachusetts, after this wondrous politico- 
histrionic performance of his. 



12 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



REMINISCENCE No. II. 



MR. BERRIEN — FRANCES S. KEY CHARLES J. INGERSOLL MR. 

WIRT MRS. LEE GENERAL LEE WILLIAM H. FITZHUGH — ■ 

GENERAL GRANT. 

I do not remember to have at any time witnessed a 
more interesting forensic discussion than one to which I 
had the pleasure of listening in the chamher of the Su- 
preme Court of the United States in the beginning of the 
month of March, 1825. A vessel engaged in the African 
slave trade had been a month or two before seized by a 
revenue cutter of the Government upon the coast of 
Florida, and had been regularly libeled for confiscation 
under the act of Congress declaring this species of traffic 
to be piracy. .This case involved pecuniary interests of 
much magnitude, and certain moral considerations, also? 
of much delicacy and dignity. The argument attracted 
a large assemblage of refined and intelligent persons of 
either sex. The discussion was opened by the celebrated 
Francis S. Key, so honorably known then and now as the 
author of "The Star-Spangled Banner." Mr. Key had 
been employed to aid the Attorney General, (Mr. Wirt,) 
while Charles J. Ingersoll, of Philadelphia, and John M. 
Berrien, of Georgia, were enlisted in the defense. I was 
very much entertained with the whole argument, but I 
was particularly charmed with the speech of Mr. Key and 
that of Mr. Berrien, both of which I now propose to 
notice very briefly. Mr. Key was tall, erect, and of ad- 
mirable physical proportions. There dwelt usually upon 
his handsome and winning features a soft and touching 
pensiveness of expression almost bordering on sadness, but 
which, in moments of special excitement, or when any- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 13 

thins; occurred to awaken the dormant heroism of his 
nature, or to call into action the higher powers of his 
vigorous and well-cultivated intellect, gave place to a 
bright ethereality of aspect and a noble audacity of tone 
and gesture which pleased while it dazzled the beholder- 
His voice was capable of being in the highest degree 
touching and persuasive. His whole gesticulation was 
natural, graceful, and impressive, and he was as completely 
free from every thing like affectation or rhetorical grimace 
as any public speaker I have known. He had a singular 
flow of choice and pointed phraseology, such as could not 
fail to be pleasing to persons of taste and discernment ; 
and I am sure that no orfe ever heard him exhibit his 
extraordinary powers of discussion, to whom the ideas to 
which he essayed to give expression seemed at all cloudy 
or perplexed, or his elocution clogged and torpid, even lor 
the shortest possible period of time. On this occasion, he 
greatly surpassed the expectations of his most admiring 
friends. The subject was particularly suited to his habits 
of thought, and was one which had long enlisted, in a 
special manner, the generous sensibilities of his soul. It 
seemed to me that he said all that the case demanded, 
and yet no more than was needful to be said ; and he 
closeWith a thrilling and even electrifying picture of the 
horrors connected with the African slave trade, which 
would have done honor either to a Pitt or a Wilberforce 
in their palmiest days. 

Mr. Berrien (with whom I afterward had the honor of 
enjoying much familiar intercourse) was now making his 
first public appearance in Washington. His fame, both as 
a jurist and advocate, had preceded him. His early affili- 
ation with the Federal party had heretofore operated as 
an insuperable impediment to his political advancement 
in Georgia, but being now in full unison with the politi- 



14 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

cal sentiment then prevailing, the Legislature of that 
State had recently elected him to a seat in the national 
Senate, a special session of which body was expected to 
commence on the 4th of March. 

The advent of Mr. Berrien had naturally awakened 
much curiosity, and when he rose to address the court he 
found himself encircled by a vast and eager assemblage. 
From the beginning of his grave and impressive exordium, 
up even to the close of his splendid peroration, he was 
listened to with unbroken attention, and never was speech 
more deserving of this quiet but expressive homage. Mr. 
Berrien appeared to be at this time about forty-five years 
of age, but it was whispered in certain circles that he was 
at least ten years older. He was of a medium height? 
exceedingly compact in his frame, agile in all his move- 
ments, of a fresh and healthy complexion, neat and even 
elegant in his attire, and as stately and dignified in his 
general demeanor as would at all have comported with 
that cordial courtesy and flowing affability for which he 
was ever distinguished. His visage betokened much of 
intellectual power. His forehead, though not unusually 
high, was broad and well developed ; his eyes large, lus- 
trous, and penetrating; his voice, which I suspect to have 
been assidulously cultivated, was deficient neither in 
compass nor melody ; it was distinct, sonorous, and im- 
pressive. He evinced on this occasion the most complete 
self-possession, and seemed to hold under easy and effective 
control all the faculties of his mind and all the passions of 
his soul. He wandered not for a moment from the main 
points in controversy ; he indulged in no extravagant 
flights of fancy ; dwelt not over long upon any of the 
topics discussed by him; attempted no tinseled rhetoric; 
essayed no pompous declamation ; put in use no trivial 
strokes of humor: uttered no florid panegyric, and ful- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 15 

minated no tempestuous, overstrained denunciation. The 
clear and copious stream of his methodical and well- 
digested logic flowed on in steady and unruffled grandeur 
like some smooth, majestic river, fed by exhaustless foi 
tains, ever moving forward evenly within its banks, never 
spreading out its waters in unnavigable shallows, nor 
breaking forth beyond its assigned boundaries and carry- 
ing desolation and terror to regions far remote. This first 
speech of Mr. Berrien in Washington was perhaps as bril- 
liant a debut as this country has yet known ; and I would 
willingly travel many miles to hear one at all approach- 
ing to it in felicity of conception or effectiveness of de- 
livery. 

When it was brought to. a close, I looked round upon 
that quiet and refined assemblage, and saw unmistakable 
tokens of approval upon all faces. A goodly number of 
those present were then known to me. Among the audi 
tors I well remember a bevy of fair ladies and handsome, 
well-dressed gentlemen, who occupied a sofa to the left of 
the bench upon which the judges sat. I will mention one 
or two of them, beginning with William H. Fitzhugh, of 
Kavensworth, in Virginia. This gentleman possessed a 
noble and prepossessing exterior. His face was marked 
alike with benevolenee and intellect. He was reputed to 
be wealthy, and doubtless was so. He was generally 
looked upon as decidedly the most rising young states, 
man in the Old Dominion, now that Armistead C. Mason 
was in the grave. He had for some years honorably occu- 
pied a seat in the Senate of Virginia, and stood high both 
as a speaker and as a sound, practical legislator. He was 
born and reared to manhood, as I have learned, in a noble 
mansion, yet standing upon the bank of the Rappahan- 
nock, just opposite Fredericksburg, and in sight of the 
neat and comely dwelling in which the childhood and 



> 



16 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

youth of the great Washington received that training 
and nurture which fitted him for the glorious part he was 
to take in his country's history. Mr. Fitzhughwas him- 
self possessed of as much of the true Washingtonian spirit 
as any man then living. He died very suddenly a year 
or two after the scene which I have been describing, leav- 
ing behind him a wife, who, T rejoice to learn, is still liv- 
ing. This lady was also present during the speech of Mr. 
Berrien, as was also Mrs. Custis, the wife of George 
Washington Parke Custis, formerly so well known in 
Washington, and so much beloved and venerated. 

Seated near these ladies was one whom I am tempted 
more particularly to describe. I allude to the only 
daughter of Mrs. Custis, the present Mrs. Lee.~ :: ' She was 
then about sixteen years of age, and was indeed " the ob- 
served of all observers." Her personal charms were such as 
must inevitably have commanded admiration and sympa- 
thy, independent of the adsc i titious advantages which so 
richly clustered about her. Ko one, I am confident, has 
ever beheld a more placid and winning face than that 
which was now presented to my gaze. She was richly 
but plainly attired, as was her mother, and there was a 
modest and reserved dignity about both of them that sig- 
niticantly bespoke their rank and bringing up. Miss 
Custis was described to me by those who knew her best 
as a young lady of sound and vigorous intellect, in which 
judgment and discrimination decidedly predominated. 
Her education had been in all respects such as was best 
calculated to make heralike happy herself and the source 
of abundant utility and happiness to others. Those who 
had beheld her venerated ancestress, the wife of Wash- 
ington, often pointed out the striking resemblance which 
they supposed themselves to have discerned between this 

*This amiable and accomplished lady died a month or two after this notice of her. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 17 

noblest of American women and the youthful representa- 
tive of her virtues and her blood. Miss Custis was the 
heiress expectant of two of the largest estates that Vir- 
ginia could then boast, and it is rather a curious and 
interesting fact that her uncle, William H. Fitzhugh, 
already spoken of, was one of the first large owners of 
slaves in Virginia who provided for their emancipation 
by will, and provided liberally also for their future educa- 
tion and support. 

I had not the honor of forming Mrs. Lee's personal 
acquaintance in 1825, and the various accidents of a vexed 
and tumultuous life withheld me from the enjoyment of 
a blessing which I should always have so highly prized 
until the lapse of thirty-seven years had proven to both of 
us how " time steals on us and steals from us ; snatching 
fire from the mind and vigor from the limb." When I 
met her by accident in Richmond one morning in the 
year 1862 I found her pale, attenuated, and hobbling on 
crutches. She was then the mother of a numerous and 
worthy offspring, and the' dutiful and loving wife of one 
of the most renowned military commanders of the age. 
How my heart sorrowed over the troubles and sufferings 
which I was told she had been compelled to endure as 
the result of a most calamitous and wasting war, in the 
bringing on of which, perhaps, no two persons on this 
broad continent had less participancy than her noble hus- 
band and herself. I was able to see but little of this 
excellent lady afterward ; but I rejoice to learn from the 
lips of many who held familiar intercourse with her that, 
though daily and hourly enduring discomforts and priva- 
tions such as war alone can inflict — though suffering 
under the tortures of a malady than which not one can be 
mentioned more painful and humiliating — though agon- 
ized with sights of desolation and anguish which it is not 
2r 



18 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

in the power of human language to describe, she yet 
ever maintained a cheerful serenity of temper; was never 
heard to utter the language of complaint or of decrial; 
occupied herself night and day in deeds of charity and 
love, and up even to the end of that unhappy conflict so 
demeaned herself as to show that in all things she was 
just such a matron as either Greece or Rome would have 
been proud to recognize, and as all America might well 
admire and Jove. 

Surely the day will come, and I must hope it is not 
now far distant, when all the virtues which adorn our 
noble countrymen and lend luster to American woman- 
hood will be everywhere estimated at their true value ; 
when all of heroism or of wisdom which belongs to the 
North, to the South, to the East, or to the West, in any 
part of our wide-extended empire, will be recognized as 
part and parcel of the " moral treasures of the country, 
and of the whole country ;" when the sage and good of 
all the States into which our Republic is divided shall 
meet again as friends and brethren, as compatriots and 
co-inheritors of civil institutions so grand in their original 
structure and so happily amplified and ameliorated by 
the lessons of a sage experience as justly to command the 
homage and elicit the imitation of all the lovers of free- 
dom to be found anywhere upon the planet which we 
occupy. 

There are two remarkable facts in our recent history as 
a people, the consideration of which (in connection with 
the generous act of amnesty granted by Congress at the 
last session of that body, and the general amity and con- 
fraternity of feeling engendered thereby) has given me 
much of gratification and of encouragement as to the 
future of our country. 

General Grant was called upon six years ago, in a man- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 19 

ner and under circumstances difficult to be resisted by 
any ordinary man, to cause Generals Lee and Joe John- 
ston to be arrested and tried for treason, despite the solemn 
parol which had been accorded to them, and in shameful 
disregard of the fidelity with which its conditions had 
been complied with. There were not a few then in whose 
bosoms revenge was rankling, and some even in high 
places were hearft to cry aloud that the "time had come 
to make treason odious." What was the conduct of this 
great captain when thus called upon to do a deed of 
shame? He indignantly refused to be used as an instru- 
ment for the perpetration of such injustice and tyranny ; 
and, with something of the stern and lofty virtue of an 
Aristides or a Cato, nobly risked his own official position 
upon the result ; thereby, in my judgment, acquiring more 
of true glory than ever he had previously done in all the 
successful battles which he had fought in defense of the 
"Constitution and the Union! Who has yet dared openly 
to censure General Grant for acting this noble part '! 

It is said that General Lee, only a few weeks before his 
lamented decease, was accosted by a maimed and tattered 
soldier near his own gate, who had fought on the side of 
the Government in the late unhappy war. The soldier 
was poor, diseased, and apparently friendless. The re- 
nowned Confederate commander heard the tale of suffer- 
ings of that unfortunate soldier with fixed attention, burst 
into tears, poured the sweet words of consolation and 
encouragement into his ears, and emptied the contents of 
his purse into his weak and trembling hands. Had all 
America been witness of this touching and impressive 
scene, where is the monster that would have presumed 
still to insist that discord should continue in the land of 
Washington, and that the rancors produced by this dire 
conflict should be yet prolonged by deeds of reciprocal 
unkindness? 



20 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



REMINISCENCE No. III. 

MR. CLAY — MR. POLK — MR. RITCHIE — GENERAL BAYLEY — BAR- 
GAIN, INTRIGUE, AND MANAGEMENT CHARGES — COMPROMISE 
MEASURES OF 1850 — LYNN BOYD — GOVERNOR PRATT — MR. 
DICKINSON — MR. DAWSON. 

Dr. Samuel Johnson, in one of the most striking num- 
bers of the JRambler, insists that it is by no means so im- 
portant that mankind should be the constant recipients of 
instruction absolutely new touching the manifold duties 
of life as it is that they should be from time to time 
reminded of moral obligations of which they may for 
some cause have become temporarily oblivious. Whether 
this renovation of early impressions shall be brought 
about by a bold and emphatic restatement of first prin- 
ciples in the abstract, or, in lieu thereof, the value of 
these first principles and the beneficial effects of faith- 
fully observing them shall be made manifest by the season- 
able citation of opposite examples, as well as by a state- 
ment of the deleterious consequences certain to flow from 
altogether disregarding or ignoring them, is, perhaps, a 
question which a mere Reminiscent of past occurrences is 
not in any way called upon to decide. 

To proceed, then : I had frequently seen Mr. Clay, both 
before he became Secretary of State, in 1825, and after- 
ward, but I had formed no particular personal acquain- 
tance with him. I had never doubted his abilities, nor 
had I failed to give him credit for many high moral and 
intellectual qualities; but I had long regarded him as the 
most efficient champion and advocate of political opinions 
altogether repugnant to the creed of what was known as 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 21 

the Democratic party, and I had, on that account, cher- 
ished strong prejudices toward him, and become deeply 
distrustful of his motives and purposes. How many thou- 
sands of our countrymen, under similar influences, have, 
in every stage of our history as a people, been uncon- 
sciously guilty of similar injustice! How often has the 
cause of free institutions suffered on this continent from 
the domination of extreme party zeal, in a thousand ways, 
since the days of the first inauguration of Washington ! 
How ungenerously did the blind and infuriated zealots of 
faction accuse even the Father of his Country of being 
desirous of establishing an imperial despotism! How, in 
a similar manner, and with equal injustice, was Jackson 
arraigned by some of those who preferred the interests of 
party to the repose and well-being of the Republic ! 

Mr. Clay visited Washington city in the winter of 
1847-'48. He stopped here for a few days only, on his 
way to Philadelphia. The Mexican war had been in pro- 
gress for a year or two. Our armies had been signally 
successful, and General Scott was already in possession of 
Mexico. Our noble soldiers were dying by thousands 
upon a foreign soil. The public morals were obviously 
undergoing much deterioration, as the natural effect of a 
war of conquest. Other evils were at the moment plainly 
in view; evils which every sagacious mind saw must be 
speedily realized unless peace could be in some honorable 
manner restored. A treaty had just been made with the 
Mexican Government, and a copy of it had been received 
in Washington. Its various provisions were not precisely 
known at the time, and there was much speculation afloat 
in regard thereto. Mr. Polk's Cabinet were said to be at 
a stand upon the question whether or not this patriotic 
and excellent personage should send the treaty into the 
Senate for ratification. It was under these circumstances 



22 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

that Mr. Clay, on the evening of his setting out for Phila- 
delphia, visited the White House and asked an interview 
with Mr. Polk. It chanced that a company of gentlemen 
had been invited to dine with the President on that very 
evening. I had the honor to be of the party. When we 
were ushered into the reception room Mr. Clay was just 
taking his leave. So soon as he had made his exit Mr. 
Polk turned to us, with a bright smile of satisfaction upon 
his face, and said: 

"Gentlemen, Mi-. Clay has just surprised and gratified me very 
highly, and has proved to me that lie is one of the most magnanimous 
and patriotic men living-. He told me, in the interview that has this 
moment terminated, that he had been informed that a treaty with 
Mexico was in the Department of State, awaiting ratification, and that 
it was doubtful whether it would be sent to the Senate ; that, from 
what he could learn of its provisions, he could not doubt that it was 
entitled to favorable consideration; that he was aware that in the 
present condition of parties there was some reason to dread that my 
administration would be bitterly assailed in several quarters, no matter 
what course I might pursue ; but that he felt bound to $ny to me, ere 
he left Washington, that, should I conclude to give the country peace 
on the basis of the treaty, all the influence which he might possess 
would be openly and earnestly put in exercise in my behalf, and he 
was certain that his Whig friends, in Congress and out of it, would 
cheerfully act in this matter on his advice." 

Mr. Polk, more than once on this occasion, strongly 
commended Air. Clay's generous and manly conduct ; and 
there is reason to believe that this unexpected guarantee 
of support had much influence in causing the treaty to be 
dispatched to the Senate for its approval, as in point of 
fact it was almost immediately after. 

A year or two subsequent to this proceeding the coun- 
try became fearfully convulsed by questions growing out 
of this same treaty. Two sectional parties, for the first 
time in the history of the Republic, were fiercely arrayed 
against each other, and no reasonable man could doubt 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 23 

that civil war was imminent. iN"ow it was that Mr. Clay 
left his own home, and resolved, though at the time in 
exceedingly feeble health, to risk his life in an effort to 
avert the dire consequences then menaced. The crisis 
which had arisen was indeed full of peril and difficulty. 
There were many conscientious men on both sides who 
felt bound to keep up the warfare then in progress. There 
were numerous local demagogues, also, on either side, 
resolved to keep up agitation for their own individual 
benefit. There was no man in either house of Congress 
who was prepared to take the lead in bringing forward a 
plan of national pacification, and who, at the same time, 
could be considered to possess sufficient weight and influ- 
ence in all sections of the Union to secure general acqui- 
escence in it. Mr. Clay was yet reverenced by the "Whig 
masses all over the land. He was a considerable slave- 
holder, but yet had been known for several years to be in 
favor of a system of gradual emancipation. He had had 
no hand in bringing on the war with Mexico, but after it 
had been declared he had been an earnest and efficient 
supporter of it, and had lost a favorite son in one of the 
battles which had occurred in the course of its prosecu- 
tion. He was fearless, sagacious, and eloquent, and was 
known to be endowed in an eminent degree with all the 
qualities necessary to, successful political leadership at 
such a moment as had then been reached. The result of 
his wondrous exertions has been long known to the world, 
but there are some particulars connected with the history 
of this trying period which may not now be distinctly 
remembered by all, and liberal minded men will, I am 
sure, excuse me if I dwell somewhat longer than I should 
otherwise do upon the merits of a man who has of late 
been assailed in a wanton and unpardonable manner by 
more than one of those who will certainly not be regarded 



21 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

by an unbiased posterity as even worthy to tie the shoe- 
latchets of the great and good man whom they have 
dared to calumniate so cruelly after his consignment to 
the tomb. 

There are two or three anecdotes connected with this 
period of Mr. Clay's history which I will here recite. It 
is known that in the columns of the Richmond Enquirer — 
a paper of great and deserved influence, and which was 
edited for many years by the celebrated Thomas Ritchie — 
much prominence had been given to the memorable " Bar- 
gain and Intrigue " scandal, which had been hatched into 
existence during the winter ofj.825, and which in its day 
had been exceedingly potential in separating good citizens 
from each other, as well as in bringing undeserved oppro- 
brium upon some of the brightest public names in Amer- 
ica. Mr. Ritchie's own high character, both as a gentle- 
man and journalist, had lent much dignity to accusations 
which, perhaps, but for his support of them, would have 
become extinct almost in the very moment of their first 
promulgation. Mr. Clay and Mr. Ritchie had played 
together in boyhood, and had maintained relations of 
close amity and kindness for many years of their early 
manhood. I have repeatedly heard from Mr. Clay's own 
lips that the circumstance of their former friendship had 
rendered Mr. Ritchie's decrial of him peculiarly galling. 
The two ancient friends had now become bitter and ap- 
parently irreconcilable enemies. 

The condition of public affairs in 1850 was such as to 
bring these pure-minded and disinterested patriots natu- 
rally into the same train of thought and sentiment. Both 
of them intensely loved the American Union. Neither of 
them had ever given even temporary sanction to the 
absurd and perilous dogmas of nullification and secession. 
The questions which had so long arrayed them against 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 25 

each other as prominent members of two opposing politi- 
cal parties had been for the most part disposed of. The 
Whig party, one of the most enlightened, patriotic, and 
truly conservative organizations ever known in this coun- 
try, was evidently preparing to retire gracefully from the 
field, having performed its particular mission, and having 
no such insane love of official patronage as could prompt 
it to keep up a useless and mischievous struggle Jin which 
the real peace and welfare of the Republic could not be s 
at all involved. The conflict between the two bodies of 
sectional extremists already referred to was at its height. 
The Republic was, in truth, tottering upon the founda- 
tions which the sage and incorruptible statesmen of a 
former generation had established. It was not for such 
men as Henry Clay and Thomas Ritchie to think of secur- 
ing party ascendency or individual advancement whilst 
demagogues of varied stamp and complexion were, under 
plausible pretexts, plotting the ruin of the sacred edifice 
of liberty itself. It was under such circumstances as 
these that Mr. Ritchie came to me one morning, a few ' 
weeks after Mr. Clay had reached Washington, in com- 
pany with General Bayley, of Virginia, and urged that 
we two should call upon Mr. Clay and ask him to offer a * 
resolution in the Senate for the raising; of a committee of v 
thirteen, through the instrumentality of which he thought 
that the great and alarming; differences then existing; 
might be reconciled, and general national brotherhood be 
re-established. Mr. Ritchie went further in this confer- 
ence, and declared the opinion, which he entertained, that 
no man in the Republic could as successfully take the 
lead in the needed work of pacification as Mr. Clay. In 
the most touching and impressive manner he gave utter- 
ance to the regret which he felt that facts connected with 
contests for party ascendency in former days should so far 



26 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

have estranged Mr. Clay and himself from each other that 
he could not take the liberty of calling upon him in per- 
son and conferring with him in regard to the means of 
averting the catastrophe obviously menaced. Mr. Ritchie, 
in addition, authorized us to give in his name to Mr. Clay 
a most explicit pledge that, should he conclude to adopt 
the course thus indicated, he would support him to the 
utmost in the widely-circulated newspaper he was then 
editing. General Bayley and myself called that very 
evening upon Mr. Clay in his parlor at the National Hotel. 
He met us in the most gracious and cordial manner, and 
received with evident pleasure the communication with 
which we had been intrusted by Mr. Ritchie. He declared 
his warm approval of the plan of operation suggested by 
that gentleman, but stated that, for various reasons of a 
very peculiar and delicate character, he would prefer that 
the resolution proposing the committee of thirteen should 
be brought forward in the Senate by some other individ- 
ual. I afterward agreed to otter it, on the express condi- 
tion that I should not be made one of its members, and 
that Mr. Clay himself should consent to preside over its 
deliberations. No one will be surprised to learn that, in 
a day or two after, Mr. Clay and Mr. Ritchie met, became 
cordially reconciled to each other, and consulted together 
often in the most fraternal manner at every stage of the 
great struggle which at last resulted in the adoption of 
the Compromise enactments of 1850. Before this con- 
summation had crowned the efforts of Mr. Clay and his 
Union friends, on a very warm day in midsummer, a very 
large party of Congressional gentlemen was convened at 
the hospitable mansion of Mr. Sullivan, of this city, a man 
universally beloved and esteemed, for the purpose of enjoy- 
ing a dinner good enough, indeed, to be set before princes 
and nobles. Mr. Clay was one of the invited guests, as 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 27 

was also Mr. Ritchie.. They sat upon opposite sides of 
the table. Mr. Clay was in his happiest conversational 
mood, and poured forth many a choice anecdote concern- 
ing the scenes of public life through which he had passed. 
It was but natural that all present should wish to hear 
him say something touching the Compromise struggle 
then going on, and the chances of accomplishing the object 
which all of us had so much at heart ; and an effort, there- 
fore, was made to call him out thereupon. He talked 
upon this subject for some time, with even more than his 
accustomed eloquence, when suddenly his mercurial and 
impulsive friend of "Auld Lang Syne " rose from his seat 
and exclaimed : " Look here, Mr. Clay, if you will really 
save the Union, we will all forgive you for having had 
Adams elected in 1825 by ^bargain, intrigue, and manage- 
ment.'' '" "Shut your mouth!" exclaimed Mr. Clay, in 
response ; shut your mouth, Tom Ritchie ; you know 
perfectly well that there never was a word of truth in that 
charge." "Very well, very well,' smilingly responded 
Mr. Ritchie ; " I say to you now, in hearing of this goodly 
company, that if you succeed in rescuing the Republic 
from ruin, and I should survive you, Tom Ritchie will 
plant a sprig of laurel upon your grave." 

I should not omit to mention here that Mr. Clay, a few 
minutes after this pleasant badinage between himself and 
Mr. Ritchie, in a very solemn and formal manner, ad- 
dressed the company substantially as follows : " Gentle- 
men, I feel it to be due to such an occasion as the present 
one to make a frank confession. Though I have never 
doubted the propriety of my own conduct, in voting for 
Mr. Adams myself in 1825 and advising my friends to 
vote for him, yet, were I to livo this part of my public 
life over again, I should not deem it judicious to accept 
at his hands the Secretaryship of State. By doing so I 



28 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

injured both him and myself; I placed myself in a false 
position before the country, and often have I painfully 
felt that I had seriousfy impaired my own capacity for 
public usefulness." 

Another incident, having much affinity with the one 
just recited, I shall now recount. Lynn Boyd, of Ken- 
tucky, is well known to thousands to have been a re- 
spectable and efficient Representative in Congress from 
the State of Kentucky. He was a zealous Democratic 
partisan, and had commenced his long public career 
as an ardent supporter of General Jackson. Mr. Boyd 
was a thoroughgoing party man at that period of his life, 
but he was, notwithstanding, an upright and manly gen- 
tleman. He was an active and efficient supporter of the 
"Bargain, Intrigue, and Management" accusation, and 
his great popularity in the district which he so long repre- 
sented in Congress was said to be greatly owing to his 
pursuing this course. He had brought himself in process 
of time to distrust Mr. Clay very deeply, and even to 
entertain feelings for him of a most unfriendly character. 
It happened that Bo} T d had always been a great devotee 
to the Union cause, and had no more sympathy with seces- 
sionists and milliners than Jackson himself had. He had 
been a diligent observer of Mr. Clay's manly and states- 
manlike course in 1850, and had learned to honor and to 
love him. One morning he came into my room at the 
boarding-house where we were both sojourning, and com- 
missioned me to go in his behalf to Mr. Clay, and say that 
he heartily regretted that he had ever called his integrity 
or patriotism in question, and hoped that he would grant 
him an early interview, for he wished to confer with him 
freely upon the momentous questions then pending. I 
undertook this honorable mission with more than pleas- 
ure. I was authorized by Mr. Clay to invite Colonel 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 29 

Boyd to his room, as I did, and soon had the satis- 
faction of witnessing a meeting between them entirely 
creditable to both parties. One or two years thereafter 
Mr. Boyd was a candidate for re-election to Congress in 
his old district, and some of those opposed to his election 
endeavored to defeat him by reminding the friends and 
admirers of Mr. Clay of Boyd's former hostility to him. 
This gentleman addressed me a letter at the time, asking 
my testimony touching the facts above stated. This was 
of course most cheerfully given, and I had the gratifica- 
tion of afterward learning that Boyd's success in the con- 
test was in part owing to the letter which I had written 
to him on this subject, and which had been published and 
circulated very freely in the district. 

It was during this same eventful summer that my friend 
and early schoolmate, Senator Pratt, of Maryland, invited 
Mr. Clay and several other gentlemen to visit him at An- 
napolis and spend a day or two with him and his charm- 
ing family at their hospitable mansion. £Tot one of those 
who had been thus summoned refused the proffered honor, 
and I well remember the delightful scenes through which 
we there passed, and in which Mr. Clay talked more freely 
than I ever knew him to do, displaying colloquial powers 
such as to me were, I confess, alike surprising and capti- 
vating. One morning he was invited to visit the Capitol, 
at Annapolis, where the old Congress were sitting at the 
time that General Washington surrendered his sword to 
that body, and returned to private life. The invitation 
was, of course, accepted, and he set off on foot for that 
venerable hall, accompanied by his friends, including, as 
I recollect, Mr. Dickinson, of New York ; Mr. Dawson, of 
Georgia, and others. When we reached our place of des- 
tination we found ourselves quickly surrounded by a con- 
siderable concourse of citizens. Mr. Clay, on getting 



30 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

within that room where the Revolutionary Congress held 
its immortal deliberations, asked that some one would 
point out to him the precise spot where Washington stood 
when the scene just referred to had its progress. "When 
this was done he walked to it, and, gazing toward the 
chair of the presiding officer of that bod}*, he raised his 
right Land, obviously in imitation of the Father of his 
Country when giving this last and crowning proof of his 
fidelity to the cause of which he had been for so many 
years the honored champion and defender. Mr. Clay was 
evidently conscious of a peculiar inspiration at that inter- 
esting moment. His face was radiant with pure and lofty 
emotion. His eyes blazed with excitement. His noble 
form seemed absolutely to swell beyond its natural dimen- 
sions. The crowd was overwhelmingly impressed, and 
vociferously exclaimed, "A speech ! A speech ! " Thus 
called upon, Mr. Clay proceeded to address those assem- 
bled, for a few moments, and in his most happy manner. 
He rapidly reviewed the existing condition of the coun- 
try, pointed out the evils of sectional jealousy and extreme 
party prejudice, spoke of the value of the Constitution 
and the Union, referred to the noble example of Wash- 
ington and his compeers of the Revolutionary era, and 
concluded in these words : 

•'However others may act, I am firmly resolved henceforward to 
hold no political fellowsh p with any man or set of men who do not 
love their country more than party, and who are not willing to make 
any sacrifice and incur any hazard for the maintenance of the Union 
of these States and the institutions of freedom established by our fore- 
fathers." 

I have only to acid that had there been one Such man 
in the Congress of the United States as Henry Clay in 
1860-'61 there would, I feel sure, have been no civil war. 
Had Mr. Clay himself been then living, the same high 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 31 

toned patriotism and consummate statesmanship which 
had been so efficiently instrumental in 1819, in 1832, and 
in 1850, in preserving the Republic from the horrors of 
civil butchery, and from the yet greater evils sure to re- 
sult from disunion, whenever that shall be effected, would 
have been seen to achieve a still grander triumph of prin- 
ciple over the embodied factionists of that period, from 
whose ill counsels such unmeasured evils have been seen 
to flow. 



32 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



REMINISCENCE No. IV. 

GENERAL HAYNE — MR. WEBSTER — GENERAL JACKSON — MICA- 
JAH TARVER — WILEY CONNER. 

It chanced that the once famous General Hayne, of 
South Carolina, visited the State of Mississippi in the 
winter of 1838 and 1839. He came to the Southwest on 
a most important expedition. He wished to call public 
attention to the scheme, which had been a short time 
before projected, of connecting the city of Memphis with 
Charleston by railway — about twelve years before the 
very first railway ever constructed west of the Alleghany 
was commenced. This was to extend from the head to 
the foot of the Muscle shoals of the Tennessee river. The 
first meeting held for the consideration of this project 
took place in my professional office, in the town of Tus- 
cumbia, where I then resided, and the well-known and 
truly meritorious Micajah Tarver presided on the occa- 
sion. A large subscription for stock was immediately 
taken up, and I had the honor of being appointed to draw 
up a petition to the Alabama Legislature for a charter of 
the company about to be formed, as well as to frame the 
charter itself, which double task I performed with more 
than ordinary pleasure. A very enterprising and worthy 
man, Colonel David Deshler, then a merchant of Tuscam- 
bia,T recollect, brought on from New York, a short time 
before, a wooden railway model, which he exhibited to 
the meeting above alluded to, and made a most masterly 
explanation -of the modus operandi of this new vehicle of 
commerce and travel. Colonel Deshler was father to the 
General Deshler who distinguished himself so much in the 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 33 

recent unhappy civil war. The Colonel died about two 
years since in Tuscumbia, leaving behind him, as I un- 
derstand, a very large estate. The railway from the head 
to the foot of the Muscle shoals proved decidedly a losing 
concern. Many of the original stockholders were sub- 
jected to great pecuniary losses thereby, and but for the 
purchase of this railway afterward by the Memphis and 
Charleston Company, afterward established, it would 
doubtless long since have been abandoned. General Hayne 
had visited Nashville and several other places of note before 
he reached Jackson, the capital of Mississippi, and had 
everywhere upon his route awakened much interest in the 
great undertaking of which he was such an eloquent and 
effective champion. The Legislature ot Mississippi was 
in session when he arrived, and a committee of three was 
appointed by that body to call upon him at liis lodgings 
and invite him to address the Senate and House of Rep- 
resentatives then in joint session. This committee, of 
which I had the honor to be a member, lost no time in the 
performance ol the honorable duty assigned them, and, 
having escorted this distinguished personage to the cap- 
itol, General Hayne proceeded to address the large con. 
course assembled in a manner so impressive and captivat- 
ing that I am sure no one who was then present has ever 
ceased since to look back to that occasion with feelings of 
unqualified satisfaction and delight. 

General Hayne was of medium stature, well shaped, 
and of a singularly animated and mercurial aspect. His 
eyes were very bright and dazzling, and of a light hazel 
color. I Lis countenance wore a very mild and benignant 
expression. His face was cleanly shaven, and he was ele- 
gantly but unostentatiously attired. His manners were 
marked with a graceful and winning affability which I 
have never seen surpassed When he mounted the stand 

3 R 



34 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

to address the audience, and for a moment stood quietly 
surveying the ladies and gentlemen assembled s he seemed 
at once to awaken a sympathy in all hearts, and to en- 
kindle a lively curiosity, also, to hear all he had to say. 
I had myself feared that the topics which he had to dis- 
cuss, being chiefly those of mere economic detail, his 
powers as an orator would find no sufficient scope for 
their display, and that he might occasionally prove dry 
and uninteresting in the presentation of some of the mat- 
ters to which he was seeking to attract public regard. 
But never did I make a greater mistake. The address, 
though of considerable length, was accompanied with such 
extraordinary charm fulness of delivery that no one could 
possibly have grown tired of listening to it, and I am con- 
fident that all who drank in his soft, mellifluous tones, 
and beheld his manly and impressive gesticulation, would 
have felt grateful to him had he continued his discourse* 
for full two hours longer. I had heard a great deal be- 
fore thus meeting General Hayne of the attractiveness of 
his voice and manner, but no description which I had be- 
fore received of him at all came up to the splendid reality 
of which I was now a delighted witness. When the com- 
mittee escorted him back to his room, I took the liberty 
of asking him to tell me how he had been able to acquire 
such wondrous facility of expression, and such remark- 
able capacit}' for keeping alive the interest of his audience. 
He answered my queries without any false modesty, and 
without a particle of vulgar egotism, very nearly in these 
words : 

" You give me credit for much facility of expression, and for having 
successfully cultivated to some extent the graces of rhetorical display. 
I shall surprise you, I do not doubt, when I tell you that at sixteen 
years of age [ was an awkward stammering boy. I desired to become 
a lawyer, and was even then assiduously preparing myself for the 
legal profession. A youth more ambitious of oratorical distinction 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 35 

than I was I am sure has never lived. But my friends and relatives all 
joined in urging- me to give up the hope of future renown as a speaker 
and to devote myself to some other calling better adapted to the slen- 
derness of my faculties. They told me that it was absurd and ridicu- 
lous in one who stuttered so abomiiiabl}^ to think of becoming even a 
tolerable pleader of causes. This mortified me much, but I did not 
desist from the struggle in which I had so zealously enlisted. I thought 
much of the difficulties of a similar kind which Demosthenes was re- 
ported to have encountered, and of the successful efforts made by him 
to overcome them. I diligently studied the tones of my own voice. I 
essayed to find out all the mysteries which belonged to our complex 
vocal organ. I labored from hour to hour, and from minute to minute, 
to ascertain the precise nature of those particular impediments to a 
clear and easy articulation under which I was suffering. I pondered 
this subject by day, and it was with me the prompter of many a pain- 
ful and of many a pleasing dream. At length the light broke in upon 
me. I found that I had never before learned to talk ; that I had been 
suffered all my life to jabber confused and unintelligible sounds. I 
learned at last that to speak, in the true sense of the word, was to ar- 
ticulate distinct vocables ; that the ardor of my temperament was such, 
as well as my ambition, to communicate ideas to the minds of others, 
that I had heretofore unduly hurried my syllables upon each other, or 
rather tried to do so, so that the vocal sounds became inextricably in- 
termingled and hopelessly indistinct, and that every fresh effort had 
involved me in greater and greater embarrassments. I came at last to 
the conclusion that the first step I had to take in order to acquire the 
complete control of my voice was to put my own* feelings under the 
strictest discipline, to habituate myself to sober thought, and to learn 
tin' indispensable art of keeping the fervent sensibilities with which I 
was endowed under thorough command, and that after I had done 
these things in an effectual manner it would then be indispensable that 
I should strive to enunciate each syllable that I had to utter clearly 
and emphatically before attempting toemita succeeding one, and soon 
until the whole sentence, whether long or short, should have passed forth 
from my lips. By pursuing this course rigidly for a considerable period 
of time, I hoped that at last I might accomplish the great object which 
I was seeking to attain, and that I should become able to speak fluently 
and without pain either to myself or to others. 1 practiced constantly 
upon these ideas, and if I now speak with ease, as you seem to think, I 
am indebted for my power in this respect to the labors which I have just 
described. This is so certainly the case that I assure you were I even 
now to attempt to express myself in the rapid manner which has lie- 



36 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

come so common of late among young men of fiery temperament and 
of nnchastened moral organism, I should inevitably stutter just as dis- 
gustingly as I did forty years ago." 

After this interesting recital had closed I ventured to 
refer to the great oratorical contest between himself and 
Mr. Webster, in the National Senate, now nearly a half 
century ago, and asked him what he thought of Mr. Web- 
ster's powers as a speaker. He at once answered that he 
supposed him, upon the whole, to be the most consum- 
mate orator of either ancient or modern times ; that his 
ability as a reasoner, he was confident, had never been 
exceeded ; that his imagination was as fertile and vigor- 
ous as that of Milton or Homer ; that his humor was both 
exquisite and abundant ; that his knowledge was unlim- 
ited ; that he had the most happy command of his temper 
at all times, and that on certain great occasions he had ex- 
celled all the speakers that had ever lived, not excepting 
either Demosthenes or Cicero. I then asked him what he 
thought of Mr. Webster's manner. He replied that it was 
always grand and impressive ; that he had never heard 
him utter a word in a careless or vulgar style ; that he 
seemed never to forget his own dignity, or to be unmind- 
ful of the character and feelings of others ; and that when 
thoroughly excited the sublime grandeur of his thoughts 
and language derived great additional potency from his 
noble and soul-moving enunciation and his few but im- 
pressive gestures. I then said to him: ''But, General 
Hayne, every one in the South admired your speeches on 
the occasion to which you have been referring more than 
they did those of Mr. Webster, and it is said that General 
Jackson was so much delighted with the first of your 
speeches in the Senate that he had it printed on satin for 
distribution among his friends at a distance. Was this 
so?" To which he replied: U I believe this to have been 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 3 t 

true ; the people of the South generally approved my 
speech because they believed that I had been defending in 
it their own local interests and honor. General Jackson 
admired it because he thought I had successfully vindi- 
cated the Democratic cause, to the support of which his 
own life had been devoted. But you know that in. a few 
months thereafter, when our nullification experiment had 
developed its gigantic proportions, and after the memora- 
ble contest had occurred in the Senate between Mr. Cal- 
houn and my ancient antagonist Mr. Webster, General 
Jackson became so great an admirer of the Senator from 
Massachusetts that he thought seriously of making him 
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States 
upon the decease of the venerated Marshall. Be assured, 
sir," he continued, "I never for one moment have thought 
of comparing that oration of mine, made in direct assail- 
ment of Mr. Webster and the Federal party of old, and to 
the defense of which I had thought proper to challenge 
him, to his great and unequaled speech in reply thereto ; 
though it is certain that, for a day or two, it seemed to 
many that I had come off victor in the contest." 

While General Hayne thus generously expressed him 
self, I could not help recurring to the celebrated contest 
between Demosthenes and Eschines, so familiar to all, the 
latter of whom, when driven into banishment by the su- 
perior eloquence of his great rival, is reported to have 
established a school of rhetoric at Rhodes, where, on one 
occasion, when he had been declaiming in the hearing of 
his pupils that very speech of Demosthenes which had 
consigned himself to exile, upon their expressing to him 
their warm admiration of it as a specimen of oratorical 
power, he magnanimously exclaimed : " If you are pleased 
with this speech when only hearing it recited by me, how 
much more warmly you would have approved it had you 
heard it thundered forth by Demosthenes himself!" 



38 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

Having referred to the railway between the head and 
foot of the Muscle shoals of the Tennessee river, and hav- 
ing incidentally mentioned that its construction brought 
serious pecuniary losses upon many of those who had par- 
ticipated therein, I am tempted to relate an anecdote or 
two somewhat germain to the matters already discussed, 
and which may a little compensate for the dullness of 
much of that which has been already here written. 

At the time that this same railway was projected there 
was a newspaper then published in the town of Oourtland, 
in Xorth Alabama, by a good and worthy citizen called 
Wiley Conner. This paper was called the Gourtland 
Herald, and below these words every day came forth, in 
freshly printed characters, a well-known couplet from 
Cowpers u Task," descriptive of the English postboy : 

" Here comes the herald of a noisy world, 
News from all nations lumbering at his back." 

I deemed it expedient to get Conner to publish a series 
of articles in his paper in support of the railway project, 
and as he had not made himself well acquainted with the 
subject I wrote most of the first articles published my- 
self. He then kept up the fire very handsomely, indeed, 
for some time, and did, I do not doubt, a good deal, in one 
way or other, to further the cause he had so much at 
heart. I well recollect that in one of the numbers of his 
remarkable gazette he went far toward demonstrating 
that the wood of the cedar tree, so well adapted to rail- 
way purposes, was far more lasting than copper. 

Removing from Alabama a year or two after, I had no 
occasion to visit Courtland again until the year 183(J. I 
then found the village in a greatly dilapidated condition. 
It did not seem to me altogether proper that I should 
leave town without calling to inquire after my ancient 
friend, so I went in the direction of the house within 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 30 

which the Courtland Herald luicl been printed in former 
days ; but what was my surprise, on entering the portals 
of that edifice, to find scattered about the floor of the 
ante-room large masses of type, and on penetrating the 
room where I had held so many grave consultations of 
yore upon questions of almost all grades and complexions, 
lo ! I beheld an aged gentleman, with spectacles on nose, 
in a broiling summer's day, sitting up, with his feet stuck 
under his posteriors, apparently sewing for his life, while 
the perspiration was pouring from his brows in the most 
copious streams. So soon as I could get myself recognized, 
I exclaimed : " Good heavens ! Mr. Conner, what are you 
doing? and what has become of the Courtland Herald?" 
To which he responded, in most lugubrious tones : 

"Oh, iny dear friend, you have ruined me ! You persuaded me, 
nine years ago, to devote my columns to the establishment of the rail- 
way that runs through this now wasted and depopulated village. As 
soon as the accursed railway got into operation, it drew off all the trad* 1 
from Courtland to other more commercial points, destroyed the value 
of my little property here, and, as it was quite as convenient for my 
neighbors in Courtland to subscribe for newpapers printed elsewhere, 
and of larger dimensions, and to print their advertisements therein 
also, whj r , you see, they all abandoned me, left the poor Courtland 
HercUd high and dry, and drove me back to my original vocation, in 
which you now see me engaged." 

I was really distressed in mind at seeing the condition 
of this public-spirited editor, and after offering him what 
consolation I could, I invited him to remove, bag and' 
baggage, to the State of Mississippi ; which, on doing, he 
soon became restored to his former comfortable and pros- 
perous circumstances. 

Wiley Conner was in some particulars certainly quite a 
remarkable man. He was in person about five feet two 
inches in height, of a fresh and rubicund countenance ; 
had what Shakspearc calls " a fair, round belly," which 



40 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

was doubtless, too, often " with good capon lined ;" with 
legs ludicrously short in proportion to the longitude of 
his body ; and having a long and fine suit of curling hair, 
plaited up carefully, and attached to the apex of his bul- 
let-shaped cranium with a large horn comb. Having no 
beard on his face, and having never married, these cir- 
cumstances, together with that of his ringlets being kept 
in place by means of the pectinal appendage already men- 
tioned, induced some of his cotemporary brothers of the 
quill, when he did anything which gave them special- 
offense, to dub him " Madame Conner," by which appella- 
tion he was, in fact, generally distinguished, save by those 
who chose, from a consideration of the peculiar manner in 
which he was accustomed to waddle about the streets, to 
call him the "yam potato.'' 

Though Conner was no statesman, and did not pretend 
to see very deeply into futurity in regard to the rise and 
fall of political parties, yet he was, perhaps, one of the 
most faithful chroniclers of the weather that the Tennes- 
see valley has ever boasted, for never did a huge snow tall 
that he did not instantly record the fact in his immortal 
columns; if the weather was very cold he did not fail to 
note that important occurrence; if it was very hot he did 
the self-same thing; if a deluging rain caused Big Xauce 
(the creek that held the village of Courtland in its watery 
embrace) to overflow and sweep away the neighboring 
fences, he was all in a pucker of dissatisfaction ; and 
whenever the exsiccating rays of a summer's sun threat- 
ened to dry up the precious streamlet he did not fail to 
write article after article intended to prompt his sluggish 
neighbors to stop as soon as possible the subterraneous 
outlet which he asserted was constantly draining off the 
waters of this second Scamander into the bed of the Ten- 
nessee river. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 41 

Never did this once-famed editorial monitor suffer a 
marriage to take place or a noted death to occur without 
saying something in the Herald thereupon, either wise or 
witty, commendatory or humorous. He proposed to make 
the Evening /Star, of New York, his model, and often have 
I seen him weep with ecstasy over articles written, as he 
said, "in the Mordecai Noah style, 1 ' and which it hugely 
delighted him to read aloud whenever he could get around 
him a company of willing listeners. His last exploit in 
this line which I now recollect was as follows : A most ven- 
erable citizen, by the name of Harper, told Conner, on a 
certain Friday morning, that he was about to be married 
to a most charming widow in a neighboring village. The 
marriage was to come oft' that very evening. Conner an- 
nounced the marriage in his paper next morning in a very 
flourishing and imposing manner. The expected groom 
attended a great muster on Saturday, when his acquaint- 
ances all came forward to congratulate him upon the for- 
tunate connubial alliance he had just effected. Now, un- 
fortunately, this same marriage had not taken place as 
expected, some terms of settlement being insisted upon 
by the friends of the lady, to which the aged candidate 
for matrimony could not be induced to accede. Harper, 
in order to save himself from further congratulation over 
an incident of good fortune which, in point of fact, had 
not been realized, flew to Conner and required a contra- 
diction to be made of his former publication. This Con- 
ner could not injustice refuse to do, but being a veritable 
wit, and somewhat of a wag with all, he accompanied the 
correction with a number of over-savory Scotch anecdotes 
of a strictly illustrative character, and made the desired 
publication under the significant caption of " A Flash in 
the Pan I" Upon this the friends of the lady grew 
furious, and justly so; and one of them, a gentleman of 



42 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

■ 

much refinement and chivalry, who was, by-the-by, very 
well known to me personally, dashed up to the town of 
Courtland for the purpose of bringing Conner to immedi- 
ate responsibility. Conner, hearing of his arrival at the 
hotel, and divining his intention, plunged into the somber 
depths of his cellar, where he remained safely esconced 
until informed, as he was in a few days, that the coast 
was clear. He got out just in time to announce the mar- 
riage of Harper to another lady of much more suitable 
age, of which he made due notification in the Herald, 
under the very appropriate heading, " No Flash this 
Time !" 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 43 



REMINISCENCE V. 

GENERAL JAMES HAMILTON — MR. CALHOUN — GOVERNOR QUIT- 
MAN — JEFF. DAVIS — GENERAL LAMAR— PRESIDENT EUR- 
NETT — NICHOLAS BIDDLE — COLONEL WHITE. 

I have heretofore made mention of a distinguished chief 

of the extreme States school of South Carolina, General 
Robert Y. Ilayne. I shall now briefly notice another 
gentleman of the same political class, General James 
Hamilton. This latter gentleman I knew well, and with 
him had much familiar intercourse for. more than twenty 
years. General Hamilton is known to have sprung from 
a family of great respectability, and very early in life to 
have established a high reputation for courage, generosity, 
and all the more heroic virtues. He was for several years 
during the days of his young and lusty manhood in the 
United States army. He resigned his military commis- 
sion, as I have understood, a short time subsequent to his 
marriage, and retired to the large estate acquired with 
his wife, where, for some years, he gave evidence of many 
high qualities, both of head and heart, and was afterward 
elected to a seat in the popular branch of Congress, where 
he ultimately attained considerable distinction. He de- 
livered in that body a number of brilliant and effective 
speeches, which attracted at the time much public notice. 
He took a very conspicuous position in the nullification 
struggle of 1832, and if war between the General Govern- 
ment and South. Carolina had then occurred, it is well 
understood that the extremists of South Carolina would 
greatly have relied for their defense, against an invading 
Federal force, upon the military experience of General 



44 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

Hamilton, his indomitable fearlessness, and bis remarka- 
ble capacity for managing and controlling men. It is for- 
tunate for the people of South Carolina, and for the fame 
of their honored executive chief at that trying moment, 
that the menaced collision was averted, and that the 
shedding of American blood upon American soil, by the 
fratricidal hands of armed American soldiers, was post- 
poned for nearly thirty years. General Hamilton is 
known by others as well as by myself to have afterward 
become far more conservative in his opinions and senti- 
ments, and in the crisis of 1850 he both wrote and coun- 
seled zealously and efficiently in the interests of peace and 
concord. I had myself a long and formal interview with 
him, in 1850, on Capitol Hill, in this city, some weeks 
subsequent to Mr. Calhoun's lamented decease, and I can 
say with truth that from no man did I receive higher evi- 
dences of sympathy in the attitude which I then occu- 
pied, and that from the lips of no man did I obtain wiser 
and more wholesome admonition. I well remember that 
General Hamilton, in the autumn of that very year, pub- 
lished a letter in which he emphatically asserted that Mr. 
Calhoun, if he had lived long enough to behold the peril- 
ous crisis of 1851, would not have been found supporting 
the reckless and dangerous policy of Mr. Davis and Mr. 
Quitman in Mississippi, and that of Mr. Me Donald and 
others in Georgia, all of whom were then struggling to 
unite all the States of the South in the co-operative move- 
ment, as it was called, which had been boldly initiated in 
South Carolina, and which looked directly to disunion, in 
case the compromise measures of that period should be 
persevered in by the Government of the Union. 

I was first introduced to General Hamilton in the spring 
of 1839, in the city of Houston, which was then the Tex- 
an capital, whither I had gone on a mingled trip of pleas- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 45 

ure and business. The affairs of Texas were then in a 
feeble and tottering condition. To be sure, the battle of 
San Jacinto had been fought, and immortal glory had 
been acquired by the seven or eight hundred gallant 
men who there defeated Santa Anna and his numerous 
army of disciplined Mexican troops ; but Texas was still 
menaced with invasion by Mexico. She was yet exceed- 
ingly deficient in moneyed resources, and the established 
governments of the earth seemed reluctant to give her 
recognition as a sovereign and independent Power. Gen- 
eral Sam Houston had now been succeeded in the office of 
President by General Mirabeau B. Lamar, who had called 
around him a safe and trustworthy Cabinet, all of whom 
were personally known to me, and greatly respected. 
Judge Burnett was Secretary of State, General Johnson 
was Secretary of War, General Richard G. Dunlap was 
Secretary of the Treasury, and General Memucan Hunt 
was Secretary of the Navy. A day or two after my ar- 
rival at the Texan capital, General Hamilton reached 
that place, also, in company with ex-Governor Butler, of 
South Carolina, and Colonel White, late of Florida, but 
then a resident of New Orleans. General Hamilton had 
been employed by the Texan government to conduct cer- 
tain fiscal negotiations in its behalf, in which it was un- 
derstood that he had been eminently successful. He was in- 
vited to a noble banquet immediately on his arrival, which 
was served up to a numerous concourse of congenial and 
accomplished guests in the lower rooms of the large build- 
ing in Houston then used as a State-house. A merrier or 
more agreeable party I never witnessed. General Hamil- 
ton, on being toasted, delivered a most interesting and en- 
couraging address, and other gentlemen spoke also, who 
were, apparently, listened to with much attention and 
pleasure. Several other dinners were afterward given to 



46 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

General Hamilton and the friends who had accompanied 
him to Texas, at which I had the honor to be present, 
and where I met many gentlemen not unknown to fame, 
among whom I can not refrain from mentioning specially 
here, General Thomas J. Rusk, afterward so prominent and 
useful as a member of the national Senate. I hope not to in- 
cur the charge of egotism by mentioning that while sojourn- 
ing there for a few days at the Texan capitol, I had the 
honor to be invited, by President Lamar and his Cabi- 
net, to write the history of the Texan struggle for independ- 
ence, the materials for which work T collected within the 
next_six months^ and the volumes containing which I 



completed in about six months more. The subject was, 
indeed, one of deep interest; the materials supplied me 
by public spirited citizens of Texas were both rich and 
abundant ; but the book itself, written in great haste, and 
amicl numerous other absorbing and perplexing avocations, 
I have long recognized in point of literary execution as 
exceedingly imperfect. The chief honor heretofore con- 
ferred upon my poor volumes consists in the fact that 
" Texas and the Texans ; or, The Advance of the Anglo- 
Americans to the far Southwest," had the fortune to be 
freely cited a few years after its appearance by Judge 
Woodbury, and other members of the American Senate, 
as unquestionable historic authority during the discus- 
sion of the grave and deeply interesting question, whether 
the " Single-Starred Republic " should be admitted into 
the Federal Union. 

I may as well 'observe here that while I was remaining 
in Philadelphia, during the winter of 1840-'41, for the 
purpose of superintending the publication of this work, I 
met with many excellent and accomplished gentlemen, 
who have been ever since retained by me in respectful 
and affectionate memory, among whom I should not omit 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 47 

to mention specially G-eorge M. Dallas, Charles J. and 
Joseph R. Ingersoll, Mr. Rush, the former Secretary of the 
Treasury under Mr. Adams, and afterward Minister Pleni- 
potentiary to England; the celebrated Dr. Chapman, a 
native of my own native county of Virginia; Dr. Dungli- 
son, Dr. Mitchell, John Paul Brown, Commodore Biddle, 
Mr. Edward A. Ingraham, and Nicholas Biddle. In ref- 
erence to the latter gentleman I will here offer a few brief 
remarks. I saw him now for the first time, and under 
decidedly unfavorable circumstances. His bank, or rather 
the United States Bank of Pennsylvania, had just failed ; 
in fact, it suspended payment on the day of my arrival in 
Philadelphia. Popular excitement against him and his 
bank was running very high, and his life was even said 
to be in danger. Still he walked about the streets of the 
Quaker City calm and composed, and did not seem in the 
least degree to quail before the tempest which was raging 
round him. He attended the Wistar parties regularly, 
and "his face belied him if his soul was sad." He visited 
me cordially at the boarding-house where I was staying, 
and I saw him repeatedly at his own hospitable mansion 
and elsewhere. He was certainly a man of very intellec- 
tual appearance and of the utmost refinement of manners. 
His conversational powers were very extraordinary, and 
he uniformly talked with me in a frank, unreserved, and 
entertaining manner. He was aware that I had written 
the volumes then emanating from the press chiefly with a 
view of expediting, as far as I could, the admission of 
Texas, of which measure he was an ardent advocate. In 
the appendix to "Texas and the Texans " will be found a 
valuable and instructive correspondence between Mr. Bid- 
dle and Mr. Jaudon, his fiscal agent abroad, in which the 
question of Texan admission is discussed most ably. This 
correspondence was politely handed to me by Mr. Biddle 
for publication. 



48 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

Nicholas Biddle was truly a man of most liberal and 
enlightened views. He did not at all doubt that in com- 
ing time, and perhaps in a very few years, all the North 
American continent, including the islands which bespan- 
gle the surface of the Mexican gulf, would be brought 
under the wise and beneficent protection of the " Stars 
and Stripes." He advocated most earnestly the immedi- 
ate admission of Texas, and contended, as I thought at 
the time and still think, with irresistible cogency, that 
the fabric of the Union would stow stronger and stronger 

o o o 

in proportion as the local governmental props placed un- 
der it for its support should be multiplied. He freely 
ridiculed the idea that Texas was too distant from Wash- 
ington to be conveniently controlled and regulated by the 
central department of our governmental system, maintain- 
ing that the most remote position of this delightful region 
was, for all practical purposes, as near to Washington 
then, by reason of the improved facilities for travel, as 
Massachusetts had been to Philadelphia in the days of his 
own boyhood. In illustration of this view of the matter 
he related a short but striking anecdote. He said that he 
remembered that John Adams, then either President or 
Vice President, reached his father's house in Philadelphia 
just before the commencement of the session of Congress, 
and that he remarked pleasantly to his host that lie sup- 
posed that he had himself just made the journey from 
Quincy, in the neighborhood of Boston, to Philadelphia 
in less time than any public man had ever before done ; 
"for," said he, "I have performed this trip in seventeen 
days, all the while traveling in nry sulky." Mr. Biddle 
seemed much grieved and astonished that any one should 
doubt the expediency of our acquiring as early as we 
honorably and safely could Cuba, San Domingo, Jamaica, 
Porto Rico, and all the adjacent isles, alleging, as 1 
thought, with great force, that until the Mexican gnlt 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 49 

should be made our Mare clausum all the commerce of the 
Western States and Territories, floating down the Missis- 
sippi and its tributaries, would be constantly exposed to 
foreign molestation. 

I do not doubt that from these interviews with Mr. 
Biddle I derived certain views expressed by me in the na- 
tional Senate, in the winter of 1847-'48, when I contended 
that, having at that time made a complete conquest of 
Mexico — holding even her capital then in our hands — in- 
stead of aiming to make a treaty with any of the disorderly 
and lawless factions then warring on Mexican soil for as- 
cendency, we should at once proceed to proclaim the fact 
that the Republic of Mexico had drawn to an end, and 
then go on without delay to Americanize the whole of 
this fair and inviting region by permeating it in eveiy 
direction with railways, establishing post offices and post 
roads over its whole surface, and opening it, on the most 
liberal and inviting terms, to enterprising settlers from 
our own country. 

We left General Hamilton, Colonel White, and others 
at the Texan capital. There they only staid a few days 
more, when some fifteen or twenty of us set sail from the 
port of Galveston to New Orleans. We traveled in a 
steamship which had been recently purchased by General 
Hamilton for the Texan Government, and in which he 
had just before navigated the stormy waves of the bay 
rolling between Galveston and the mouth of the Missis- 
sippi river. This vessel had been called the Charleston. 
General Hamilton, whilst we were returning on it, one 
day at dinner, over several bottles of excellent Madeira, 
christened it anew by the name of the Zavallo, in honor 
of a Mexican chief of that name very favorably known 
as a friend of Texas in her late struggle for independence. 
Some fifteen years after this General Hamilton was 
5 R 



50 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

wrecked on board a steamship bound from Galveston to 
Berwick's bay, and thus ended the varied and romantic 
career of a warm-hearted, enterprising, and truly chival- 
rous Southern gentlemen. 

There is one other particular which I should here notice 
in connection with this same trip to Texas. I found on 
my arrival there a French count, by the name of Saligny, 
or De Saligny. He was a guest of my friend General 
Hunt during my own stay at his house, and was a very 
handsome little fellow; indeed, he was thought by some 
to resemble the portraits of the first Napoleon. An on 
(lit, too, prevailed that he had distinguished himself a 
good deal during those fierce conflicts which raised Louis 
Philippe to the French throne. He had been secretary 
of legation en attendant to M.' Sartiges at "Washington, 
and had been sent to Texas, as he said, by the French 
Government to inspect the condition of that young Re- 
public. The Texan President, whilst I was at Houston? 
was examining into the expediency of sending Colonel 
White as an accredited minister of Texas to France ; and 
this appointment Colonel White would certainly have re- 
ceived but for the sudden and somewhat abrupt interpo- 
sition of the Count de Saligny, who represented that the 
gentleman named would not be acceptable as Envoy to his 
royal master. The vivacious French count traveled to 
New Orleans in company with Colonel White, General 
Hamilton, and others, including myself, and he and I had 
the honor, the day after our arrival in the Crescent City, 
of taking dinner together at the house of that high-bred 
and noble-hearted gentleman, whose hopes of diplomatic 
honor he had so cruelly nipped in the bud, and of enjoy- 
ing at the same time his own most learned and instruc- 
tive conversation whilst receiving the bland and courtly 
attentions of his most beauteous and accomplished lady. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES 51 

Colonel White was a native of Orange county, Virginia, 
had represented Florida in the House of Representatives 
in the years 182G and 1827, and perhaps for several sessions 
thereafter. He was a ripe scholar, a profound lawyer, and 
an accomplished man of the world. I first saw him and 
his famed helpmate at the Saratoga Springs in the sum- 
mer of 1825. He was then buoyant and full of hope, and 
seemed to imagine that he had a long life of usefulness 
and felicity before him. I recollect that he was then just 
from Boston, where he had listened with rapture to Mr. 
Webster's first monument speech, and had attended the 
grand fete given the night after at the house of New Eng- 
land's sagest statesman to the Marquis de Lafayette, then 
on his travels in this country. White stated to me that 
he had seen James Barbour, of Virginia, at this same 
Websterian party, standing in a corner of the room, en- 
circled by the Boston wits and savants, all listening with 
evident amusement and admiration to his rich and varied 
conversation, and to his choice and well-told anecdotes. 
I have seen James Barbour often ; a nobler and more ma- 
jestic looking person I never expect to behold. He was tall, 
straight, and of the most symmetrical proportions. He 
had a high and expanded forehead, large and lustrous 
eyes; his eyebrows, black and bushy, were most proudly 
and imperiously arched ; his nose was aquiline, and as 
expressive as could have been that of Julius Cresar him- 
self. His erudition was limited, for his early opportuni- 
ties had been slender. He always talked, though, with 
animation and earnestness ; he ever looked the complete 
and polished gentleman; had a clear, resounding voice in 
debate, and was always listened to with respectful atten- 
tion. He had less of party rancor about him than most 
public men of his time ; never indulged in coarse and Bil- 
lingsgate denunciation ; and when he died I am sine he 



OZ CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

had as few personal enemies as any man on the American 
continent. He commenced his political career as a zeal- 
ous supporter of the Virginia resolutions of lT98-'99, 
afterward accepted Mr. Madison's gall-extracting solution 
of them, and ended his political life as a sturdy and im- 
movable Whig of the Clay and Webster stamp. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 53 



REMINISCENCE No. VI. 

MR. VAN BUREN — MR. TYLER — GEN. HARRISON CESARISM. 

The nomination of Martin Van Buren to the Presi- 
dency, in 1836, seemed to call for uncommon efforts to 
secure his election. The popularity of this gentleman 
outside the State of New York had not yet been subjec- 
ted to any decisive test, and he had been so virulently 
and persistently assailed by some of the leading Whig 
statesmen, as well as by numerous editors of political 
newpapers of the Whig persuasion in different parts of 
the Union, that it was conjectured by some of his warm- 
est friends and admirers that his elevation to the Presi- 
dency was an event by no means certain to occur. To be 
sure, he was openly and powerfully sustained by General 
Jackson, whose influence was now at its height, and who 
did not attempt to conceal the conviction which rested 
upon his mind that the great political reforms which he 
had been zealously conducting for the eight years of his 
memorable administration would depend for their con- 
summation mainly upon the triumph of the Democratic 
party in the pending Presidential contest. It should be 
here mentioned that the opponents of Mr. Van Buren 
had unwittingly enhanced his popularity very much by 
an over-rancorous and unsparing assailmcnt of him ; a 
result which may be always confidently anticipated as the 
effect of such a course of proceeding so long as the pop- 
ular masses of our country shall themselves remain pure 
and uncorrupted and capable of discriminating justly be- 
tween the bold and needful arraignment of great public 
malefactors, and the attempts, so often witnessed in all 



54' CASKET OF UEMINISCENCES. 

republics, to undermine and dishonor men of genuine 
merit and of eminent public services by mean and illib- 
eral charges of delinquencies not capable of being satis- 
factorily established in proof. The fatuity manifested 
often by the shallow zealots of faction in their endeavors 
to crush men of known probity and ability by the prefer- 
ring of accusations of a manifestly frivolous and un- 
founded character, alone with a view to the cherished 
purposes of faction, is to me one of the most wonderful 
moral phenomenons of the present age ; and, inasmuch as 
such paltry and ill-judged attacks never fail to recoil 
sooner or later upon those who employ them, it may be 
regarded as a manifest proof both of intellectual weakness 
and a want of elevated self-respect to exhibit the least 
chagrin or irritation under such commendatory denuncia- 
tion. Such, I am sure, were the views entertained by 
Van Buren touching this matter, as I know not only from 
his own repeated declarations, but from a very close ob- 
servance of his demeanor and language in public life. 
His career as an active and leading politician had been 
already somewhat prolonged; he had been a conspicuous 
member of the Legislature of Xew York, Governor of the 
State, a United States Senator, Secretary of State under 
General Jackson, and a minister abroad, in all of which 
positions he had shown much ability; yet to very many 
of the people of the Southwestern States he was not very 
familiarly known, and among them he had been cruelly 
traduced by the celebrated George Poindexter and others 
of his class, who were accustomed to speak of him as '.'the 
Political Iago," "the Little Magician of Ivinderhook," 
and in the use of like appellatives. It was judged in 
Mississippi to be expedient that some one should be de- 
puted to Albany — where Mr. Van Buren was then tem- 
porarily sojourning — for the purpose of obtaining some 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 55 

explanation from his own lips elucidatory of certain dis- 
puted points in his history. Being solicited to go upon 
this mission, I cheerfully undertook it, and proceeded to 
New York without any delay save that which was neces- 
sarily incident to my passing through Virginia on the 
way, Avhere I wished to spend a day or two with several 
dear relatives and friends. 

On reaching the city of Norfolk, I took passage on a 
comfortable steamer bound to Richmond. I found upon 
the boat a number of well-dressed gentlemen and ladies, 
all of whom were wholly unknown to me. In the course 
of an hour or two I chanced to get into a conversation 
with two gentlemen who reported themselves to be elec- 
tors on the Harrison Presidential ticket, and what was at 
first a calm and courteous colloquy between us upon the 
politics of the time became very soon, as in such cases is 
usual, a boisterous and excited controversial dispute, not 
possible, indeed, to be in the least degree profitable to any 
human being. So soon as this scene had drawn to an end, 
I was again accosted by one of the gentlemen with whom 
I had been disputing, and asked by him whether I was 
acquainted with John Tyler. On my responding in the 
negative, he pointed out to me a gentleman, apparently 
a little past the meridian of life, very plainly dressed, who 
was at the time in an animated conversation with a line 
looking and elegantly appareled lady. I surveyed this 
scene for a moment or two, when my civil compagn.on du 
voyage inquired of me whether I had any objections to 
being introduced to John Tyler. "None in the world," 
I responded. "I have long admired his character very 
highly and shall feel it to be quite an honor to be presented 
to him." This accordingly took place at once, and I 
found myself in a minute or two more engaged in one of 
the most agreeable conversations I had ever enjoyed. Mr. 



56 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

Tyler met me in an exceedingly bland and cordial man- 
ner, and at once opened himself to me in the frankest and 
most unreserved style upon many of the most attractive 
topics of the time, and very soon entered upon a calm and 
dignified discussion of several of the most contested points 
of political controversy then occupying the public mind; 
and, without demanding directly the expression of my 
own opinions thereupon, he gave me an opportunity of 
dissenting from him should I choose to do so. Being 
really very anxious to hear him talk, and being altogether 
unwilling to change the tone of our conversation by dis- 
puting the propositions so pleasantly enunciated by him, 
I cautiously avoided making any issue with him what- 
ever ; but, on the contrary, every now and then took oc- 
casion, as far as I could do so without seeming adulation, 
to refer, in a kind and complaisant manner, to certain of 
his own political acts which I had sincerely approved, and 
especially to his then recent manly resignation of the seat 
which he had held in the National Senate when he found 
himself unable to comply with the Legislative instruc- 
tions which had been sent to him from Richmond, with- 
out a violation of his own sense of propriety. After tins 
interchange of ideas had proceeded for nearly an hour, 
Mr. Tyler suddenly rose up and, assuming a most genial 
smile, invited the company to join him in a glass of wine. 
While we were in the act of enjoying the inspiring liquid 
supplied to us from the bar, Mr. Tyler waggishly turned 
to me and said : " I have a little joke which I must tell you 
upon these two electoral friends of ours. Just before you 
were introduced to me these two gentlemen came to me 
and said: 'Mr. Tyler, we have just encountered one of 
the fiercest Van Buren men we ever saw. He has said 
many things which were not a little annoying to us, and 
we have to ask of you to take him in hand and relieve 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 57 

his mind from some of the strange delusions under which 
it is now laboring.' So, at their instance, I sought to 
draw you into discussion, and I feel .gratified that in this 
way I have had the pleasure of making your acquaint- 
ance." An hour or two after this, Mr. Tyler called me 
to him, on the right hand side of the boat, and said, point- 
ing to a fine old building near the bank of the river: 
"There lived and died Benjamin Harrison, so much dis- 
tinguished in the early history of the Ancient Dominion, 
who, you know, was probably a descendant of the Har- 
rison, who was one of the associates of Cromwell. He 
was the largest man in the old Congress of the Confeder- 
ation, and when John Hancock was elected President of 
that body he bore him to the chair in his arms. In that 
house, too, was born William Henry Harrison, one of the 
three candidates for the Presidency now in the field. I 
had the honor to be born in the same little county in 
which that venerable mansion is situated. Now, would 
it not be rather a curious coincidence were General Har- 
rison to be elected President, as I really believe he will be, 
and I should be elected Vice President, upon the White 
ticket, an event which I hold not to be. at all improbable, 
both of us being thus natives of this small county in 
Virginia?" Though the coincidence suggested did not 
arise in 1836, yet four years after, as all remember, Gen- 
eral William Henry Harrison and John Tyler were chosen 
to the Presidency and Vice Presidency of the Republic 
upon the same ticket ! 

I must say of Mr. Tyler that both in our intercourse 
upon the steamer and in that which took place afterward 
between us on our arrival at Richmond, he evinced as 
much of good nature and of high-bred politeness as of in- 
tellectual resources. He was really one of the most genial 
and captivating men I ever encountered ; there was not a 



58 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

particle of hauteur or assumption in his aspect or de- 
meanor ; he seemed to be eminently frank and uncon- 
strained in his conversation ; had a clear and ringing 
voice, possessed a ready and insinuating smile, and, in 
fact, few could hold converse with him for ten or fifteen 
minutes even without feeling strongly impressed with his 
many high qualities, nor without feeling more or less in- 
clined to sympathize with.his fortunes. When we reached 
the hotel in Richmond Mr. Tyler proposed to me to go 
with him to call upon the venerable Thomas Ritchie, ot 
the Richmond Enquirer, ami John Hampden Pleasants, of 
the Richmond Whig. Finding neither of these gentle- 
men at home we proceeded to the Capitol of the State, 
and thence to the Governor's house. On reaching the 
latter he said: " Here is the house in which I undertook 
to play Governor in Virginia a few years ago. I was 
very reluctant to hold the office, but my political frjends 
would compel me to do so, though I told them I was too 
poor to become Governor, mj private fortune not being 
sufficient to defray the expenses incident to this high sta- 
tion, and the Governor's salary amounting to but an incon- 
siderable sum. On my inauguration as Governor I in- 
vited the members of the Legislature of both parties to 
partake of a banquet which I had caused to be prepared 
for them. They came and found a plentiful supply of Old 
Virginia ham upon the table, accompanied with a huge 
mass of well-baked corn-bread, together with a copious 
supply of Monongahela whisky ; to all which I gave 
them a cordial welcome, hoping in this way to convey to 
them a significant hint that if they expected their Gov- 
ernor to live like a gentleman, and in a manner compati- 
ble with the dignity of our noble old State, they must 
provide for him liberally in the matter of salary." 

When I reached Albany I found Mr. Van Buren in ex- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. -V.' 

cellent health and spirits, lie mot mo very cordially ^ 

took mc to several interesting places in the city, and in- 
vited me to dine with him at 5 o'clock that day, having 
meanwhile conversed with me freely in regard to the ob- 
jects of my trip. At dinner I met several gentlemen of 
eminence, all of whom are now numbered with the dead, 
including our delightful host himself; these were Gov- 
ernor Marcy, Senator Tallmadge, Chancellor Walworth, 
and John Van Buren. A more agreeable repast I have 
never enjoyed. Mr. Van Buren was, perhaps, as polished 
and captivating a person in the social circle as America 
has ever known, and on this occasion he was as agreeable as 
I ever knew him to be in after life, when I met him often 
and heard him converse without reserve upon all the 
questions which then occupied the public mind. I have 
long been of opinion that Mr. Van Buren possessed abili- 
ties far superior to the estimation formed ot him by most 
of his cotemporaries. His mind was at once vigorous 
and comprehensive; his judgment upon the public ques- 
tions with which he had to deal was singularly accurate 
and discriminating; his knowledge of men was most pro- 
found; he often evinced a most sagacious and penetrating 
foresight as to the future, and was a man of the most 
imperturbable spirit I have ever known. No one, I am 
certain, has ever exhibited greater refinement of manners, 
and his personal integrity was far beyond suspicion. 
When he was, at different times, a member of legislative 
bodies, he seldom spoke at great length, and never in a 
declamatory style. He expressed to me, when in Albany, 
in 1836, his decided aversion to this style of speaking in 
the National Senate, in which body he thought that the 
conversational tone and manner ought to prevail almost 
exclusively. It is wonderful to what a degree he had dis- 
ciplined his own sensibilities, so as to make them almost 



60 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

impervious to attacks made upon his feelings or character, 
even in his own presence. I recollect of once asking 
him if it could be indeed true that he had sat in the 
President's chair of the Senate perfectly t-unmoved, (as had 
been represented,) and with a serene smile upon his visage, 
when Mr. Clay was delivering one of the most powerful 
of his philippics, and in which he had been more than 
once himsell referred to with the most terrible severity; 
when he answered: "Eloquent as certainly was that speech 
to which you refer, all-potential as were Mr. Clay's voice 
and manner, bitter as was his denunciation, and caustic 
as was his ridicule, I am not aware that the listening to 
his electrical utterances had any disturbing effect upon 
my feelings, and I suppose that my appearance at the 
time must have been in harmony with my emotions. 
While Mr. Clay was thundering forth that magnificent 
address — which certainly seemed to have much effect upon 
most of those in hearing of it — the idea was passing 
through my mind that this speech would be of much ad- 
vantage to me; that it would tend greatly to strengthen 
the attachment of my political friends; would warm up 
their sympathies in my behalf, and concentrate their re- 
gard; while even the more generous of my opponents, in- 
cluding, perchance, Mr. Clay himself in a cooler and less 
excited moment, would feel that I had been greatly 
wronged by such wholesale and spiteful denunciation. I 
do not know whether or not I smiled on that occasion, as 
you have been told that I did, and as it would have been 
quite natural that I should have done with the particular 
view which I took of the matter; but it is certain that 
when I descended from the chair on the adjournment of 
the Senate, and met Mr. Clay, I spoke to him with my 
accustomed civility and kindnes, and without harboring 
a sentiment of hostility toward him." 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 61 

After the decease of Mr. Van Buren a volume emanated 
from the press of New York which I read with great in- 
terest and instruction. This book contains the views 
which its distinguished author entertained upon govern- 
ment and the history of political parties in the United 
States from the earliest period of our annals as a nation. 
It is to be deeply regretted that Mr. Van Buren did not 
live to complete this remarkable work, as indeed that 
portion of it which seems to have received the finishing 
touches of his pen must inevitably claim for him hereafter 
a very high place among the public writers of our coun- 
try. I was particularly struck with what he says so im- 
pressively in regard to the wholesome and conservative 
influence of the agricultural class of our population in the 
maintenance of republican institutions, and in keeping 
up among our people simplicity of manners and freedom 
from social contamination. I am persuaded that no one 
can read with due attention this noble contribution to 
our national literature without finding his love of a ra- 
tional and orderly freedom renovated and strengthened, 
and his hopes of the perpetuity of our noble institutions 
vivified and confirmed. If those who distrusted Mr. 
Van Buren's motives while living, and charged him with 
the worst designs against our republican system of gov- 
ernment, will do themselves the justice to examine this 
last solemn revelation of his thoughts and wishes, I am 
sure that they will feel bound to accord to him a very 
lofty position on the roll of American statesmen and 
patriots. 

And yet a distinguished gentleman of the South, at 
one time much admired and loved by certain political ex- 
tremists of that region, some twenty-five or thirty years 
ago, wrote a political novel, the significant title of which 
was, I believe, " The Partisan Leader," in which Mr. Van 



62 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

Buren is delineated as a monster capable of planning the 
destruction of our valued republican institutions, and as- 
pirin; to establish on American soil a monarchical des- 
potism. 

I do not feel willing to close my notice of this wise and 
pure-minded man and his valuable posthumous volume 
without stating my full concurrence in the opinion ex- 
pressed therein by him, that so long as we shall continue 
to hold within our frontiers a numerous, wide extended, 
and enlightened agricultural class, duly mindful of their 
rights, and ever prepared to maintain them, there can be 
no great danger that an imperial despotism will ever be 
seen to cast its dark shadow over this continent, or that 
any considerable number of our people will be anywhere 
found enunciating a desire for the overthrow of our re- 
publican fabric of government. I feel bound, after having 
gone thus far, to go yet further, and declare the convic- 
tion which I feel, after the fullest consideration of the 
subject and the most scrutinizing examination of all the 
signs of the times, that no man has yet been born on 
American soil so stupid and so unprincipled as to harbor 
the insane and monstrous idea that to him has been con- 
signed by Destiny the task of building up an imperial 
dynasty, like that either of the first and second of the 
Csesars of the olden time, or that of Napoleon the Great 
and Napoleon the Little of our own age. It is a gross 
insult to the American people to suppose them capable of 
submitting to such degradation as this ; and it is still a 
grosser insult, if possible, to the principles of deceney and 
justice to charge any living American patriot with such 
ineffable treachery and baseness. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. G3 



REMINISCENCE No. VII. 

GENERAL JACKSON— WILLIAM C. PRESTON— ROBERT J. WALKER- 
LOUIS LEVIN — COLONEL WHARTON — MARQUIS OF MOSCATI. 

The last days of the Congress which closed its session 
on the 4th of March, 1837, were in part occupied with 
the discussion of the Texas question. President Jackson 
had, some months previous, sent to Texas a special gov- 
ernmental agent, to examine carefully into the condition 
of affairs in that region, with a view to enabling our own 
Government to decide in a safe and judicious manner the 
interesting question wdiether it would be proper to recog- 
nize the Texan Republic, which had then been recently 
established, as an independent power. The report of the 
agent deputed thither had been some days previous laid 
before Congress by the President, and many influential 
members, both of the Senate and the House of Represen- 
tatives, had come to the conclusion that an act of formal 
recognition should at once take place, while others opposed 
this under the reasonable apprehension that such a course 
of proceeding might involve our country in a troublesome 
and unprofitable war with the Mexican Republic. I have 
seldom been more entertained than I was with the debates 
which took place in Congress during the latter part of the 
month of Februaiw and the beonnnino; of the succeeding 
month upon this subject. In the Senate, William C. Pres_ 
ton, of South Carolina, and Robert J. Walker, of Missis. 
sippi, w r ere the most active and zealous advocates of re- 
cognition, but a number of other Senators took a very 
prominent part in support of this movement. Great ex- 
citement prevailed in regard to this matter, and it was 



64 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

finally decided to be best to go no further in the affair for 
the present than to co-operate with the President in send- 
ing a Charge d' 'Affaires to the capital of Texas ; and, with 
a view to saving the incoming administration from what 
was deemed a delicate and grave responsibility, it was 
judged most prudent that General Jackson should him- 
self make the nomination. He accordingly sent in the 
name of Mr. Labranchc, of Louisiana, who, after a rather 
excited debate upon his merits and qualifications, was at 
last confirmed. 

A day or two after this the two Texas plenipotentiaries 
then in Washington, whose official character had not been 
at all recognized by our Government, gave a grand dinner 
at their rooms, to which some forty or fifty of the leading 
friends of the cause which they represented were invited. 
I remember that there were present at this dinner John C. 
Calhoun, William C. Preston, Robert J. Walker, John J. 
Crittenden, John Bell, AVaddy Thompson, General Ed- 
mond P. Gaines, and many others of great worth and 
respectability. There was a most delightful interchange 
of sentiment on the occasion, and several very brilliant 
oratorical effusions were elicited. A few days after I set 
out for my own distant home in the Southwest, in com- 
pany with a number of gentlemen whose society along 
the journey helped much to beguile the difficulties and 
annoyances at that time necessarily consequent upon a 
trip which had to be performed in a great degree by stages, 
the Baltimore and Ohio railroad having then been com- 
pleted only as far as Fredericktown, Maryland. Several 
of our company, including the two Texan Ministers, Gen- 
eral Memucan Hunt and Colonel William H. Wharton, 
General Thomas J. Green, of Texas, Amos Kendall, then 
Postmaster General, and myself, had the pleasure of sup- 
ping at the house of Colonel Skinner on the evening 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 65 

of our arrival in Baltimore, and to talk over, in a 
manner to me alike interesting and instructive, the reign- 
ing topics of the period. I never saw Mr. Kendall in so 
gladsome and communicative a mood, and he from time 
to time discoursed upon the gravest and most important 
questions of State with a profundity and power which 
left a lasting impression on my mind. 

We were detained in Baltimore until the evening suc- 
ceeding our arrival in that city, awaiting the setting forth 
of the rail-car to Fredericktown, and during the interme- 
diate time a scene occurred which I am inclined here to re- 
late, at the hazard of being regarded by some as a little 
frivolous and fanciful. I was walking out in the morning 
about 10 o'clock, along one of the most frequented streets 
of the city, when I unexpectedly met a gentleman form- 
erly well known in Mississippi, who told me that he was 
on his way to the hotel where I was staying for the pur- 
pose of inviting me and the friends who were traveling 
with me to dinner at his house that day. He told me 
that he would accept no refusal of the invitation tendered, 
and that the preparations for the banquet in prospect had 
been already made. Of course I accepted his hospitable 
offer, as did all the others invited. He requested me to 
come to his house an hour or two before the moment of 
dining would arrive, as he wished to introduce me to the 
lady whom he had recently married and with whom he 
knew I would be charmed. 

Before I proceed further with my story let me give some 
account of the individual who was thus putting himself 
to so much trouble and expense for our entertainment. 

Louis Levin was a South Carolinian by birth ; by des- 
cent an Israelite. He was a man of exceedingly handsome 
person, at least in early life. His mind was full of ac- 
tivity and sprightlrness. He possessed the most remark- 
able me mory I have ever known. His organ of language 
5r 



GQ CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

was so large that his bright eyes positively almost seemed 
when he chanced to be a little excited, to be ready to fall 
from their sockets. lie had been well educated ; had read 
much, and had forgotten nought that he had ever learned. 
He knew most of the best English poetry by heart, and 
sometimes, when called on to do so, made recitations far 
more impressive than any that lever heard from Macready ? 
Booth, or Forrest. His declamation of Coll ins' " Ode to 
the Passions " was so masterly as positively to electrify 
all who witnessed it. His conversational powers were 
very remarkable; though he seemed in general to talk far 
more from memory than as the result of present cogitation. 
He spoke in public with great fluency, but without much 
display of argumentative power. I am well satisfied that 
he was a person of most kind and genial disposition, and 
that if he had possessed the treasures of the world he 
would have lavished them all upon friends that he loved ? 
or have expended them in the accomplishment of objects 
which chanced to be especially desirable to him. He was 
brave almost to a fault, and was imbued with all the most 
extreme notions of Southern chivalry. 

I saw this very remarkable person first in the city of 
Vicksburg, about the year 1832, at which place he had 
but recently arrived, bearing with him letters of intro- 
duction to myself and others from gentlemen of standing 
then resident in the county of Wilkinson, in the same 
State. He had just emerged from a duel, fought with a 
young man about his own age, who, after Levin had de- 
livered a brilliant 4th of July oration, and was receiving 
on all sides the commendations of those who had heard 
it, had laid claim to its authorship. Levin lingered about 
Vicksburg for some time, and there his very impulsive 
nature got him into several serious personal quarrels, from 
which I had much trouble in rescuing him. At length 
he disappeared from Vicksburg, and in a few weeks T heard 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 67 

of his having made his entree into the city of Nashville, 
where, hearing his native State, South Carolina, then in- 
volved in the convulsive throes of Nullification, fiercely 
denounced, as well as several of her leading statesmen of 
that period, hy one or two public speakers of eminence, 
he boldly mounted the stand and poured forth such a 
tirade of vindicatory declamation as astounded all who 
listened to it. Remaining then for several weeks in Nash- 
ville, he became decidedly a social lion, and succeeded in 
captivating the heart of a young lady of that vicinage 
whose rare beauty and accomplishments are yet spoken 
of in Middle Tennessee in language of unqualified com- 
mendation, and the virtues of whose heart are, if possi- 
ble, still more esteemed and praised. To this lady he was 
in a short time married. But alas! she did not long sur- 
vive. On her decease Levin journeyed to Baltimore, in 
order to procure a suitable monument for the helpmate 
he had so unfortunately lost. On going one morning into 
the workshop of a worthy lapidary of that city for the 
purpose of leaving directions with him for the prepara- 
tion of a suitable tombstone for his departed wife, he 
saw a beautiful young widow who had come thither also 
with a view to performing the same pious honors to the 
memory of a husband who had been recently taken from 
her. The coincidence of their coming together on that 
spot so unexpectedly when having precisely similar mis- 
sions to execute struck them both most forcibly. In short, 
they fell in love at once, and in a week or two it was gen- 
erally known in Baltimore and the surrounding country 
that a marriage between these two romantic young peo- 
ple^ would soon occur. It chanced that at this time a 
gentleman was spending a few days in Baltimore who was 
of some prominence in the city of Nashville, who, hearing 
of the match which was in contemplation, and not being 
at all prepossessed in favor of Levin, deemed it his duty 



68 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

to interpose for the purpose of disappointing his connubial 
anticipations. What this gentleman did or said on the 
occasion I have never exactly known. It is certain, 
though, that this unlooked for interference roused the ire 
of my inflammable friend Levin very greatly, and that 
he sought out this personage without delay on the street- 
side, and made upon him a fierce attack, which very de- 
monstrably indicated the deep sense of injury with which 
his own bosom was lacerated. This transaction found 
its way very promptly into a court of criminal cognizance 
where Levin, following up the example of Caesar, of whom 
Quintillian says : " He spoke with the energy with which 
he fought," he undertook his own defense, and so acquit- 
ted himself of this duty as to awaken much admiration 
and sympathy among those who listened to his indignant 
philippic. All impediments to his marriage being thus 
removed, he soon found himself the possessor of a lady 
whose personal charms were greatly set off and height- 
ened b}- the large estate which she held in ownership. In 
a month or two more Levin became very favorably known 
as a defender of criminals in the courts of Baltimore, and 
I recollect that on the very morning that I had met him 
on the street-side, in the manner already described, while 
he and I were holding brief converse, a gentleman of very 
good exterior approached us, and was introduced to me 
as the son of the renowned William Pin|kney, who com- 
mended Levin in the most emphatic manner on account 
of a very felicitous speech which he said that he had 
heard from his lips in the Criminal Court the day 
before. 

I proceeded to the house of Mr. Levin so soon as I could 
make my toilet, and was there presented to his very 
handsome and captivating lady, the charms of whose con- 
versation exceeded even the beauty of her person. She was 
rather low of stature, but elegantly proportioned; her face 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 69 

was delicate and well formed; her expression was perfect- 
ly angelic, and her voice was as sweet and inspiring as 
that of the nightingale itself. The company soon arrived, 
and the few hours which now flew rapidly away were 
marked with a joyousness of spirit which I am sure has 
never been surpassed. 

The indomitable Levin attended our party to Frederick- 
town that evening, and, soon after reaching the hotel 
where we were to spend the night, he made known to us 
his wish that we should attend at his room, at the hour of 
9 o'clock, to participate in a farewell scene of good humor 
and jollity, which he thought would a little soften the 
pain of our expected separation. We attended accord- 
ingly, and found wine and hot whisky-punch flowing 
there in abundance. Just before tins goodly company 
dispersed to their places of rest an incident occurred which 
impressed me very forcibly indeed, and upon which I 
have often pleasantly ruminated since. A young lawyer 
of promise belonging to the Maryland bar, whose name I 
do not choose to mention here, came up to be presented 
to Mr. Levin. He was a very fine-looking person, and 
possessed a countenance expressive both of good nature 
and intellect. I observed that durins; the scene of intra- 
duction he evinced a blushing embarrassment not at all 
usual in such cases. Presently, in the tendercst accents of 
interrogation, he inquired after the health of Mrs. Levin, 
whom he said he had known previous to her marriage. 
There was something in the aspect and manner of the 
young gentleman, as well as in the tones of his voice, 
which irresistibly conveyed to my mind at the moment 
images which prompted me to propound to him at once, 
in as kind and delicate a manner as I could, several 
questions, which, with the tremulous responses made to 
them, I will here recite: "Tell me, my dear sir, did not 
you know Mrs. Levin before marriage?" "I did/' he 



70 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

answered, with much embarrassment. "Did you not 

love her?" I then asked. "I did," he responded, with in- 
creasing confusion. "Did you not at one time expect 
confidently to marry her ?" I asked. He replied in the 
affirmative, and hurst into tears. 

This denouement was exceedingly surprising to Levin 
himself, as well as to all others present, for he assured 
me that he had never heard before that his wife had such 
an acquaintance in the world. 

A year or two elapsed, and I heard of Levin in Phila- 
delphia, where he was reported to have taken an active 
part in those memorable riotous proceedings which eventu- 
ated in the burning of a Catholic church there. In pro- 
cess of time he was taken up as an anti-Catholic and a 
Know-Nothing, and sent to Congress, where I found him 
when I took my seat in the Senate in December, 1847. I 
frequently visited him and his amiable wife during my 
stay in Washington. I resigned my place in the Senate, 
and after passing through many intermediate scenes of 
turmoil and strife, both in Mississippi and in California, 
visited Washington again in 1858. It was soon made 
known to me that my friends of former days were in the 
city, and were boarding at one of the hotels. Here I 
visited Mr. Levin and his wife; but, alas ! what changes 
had occurred in both of them! Levin, from long-con- 
tinued genial excesses and other causes, had become in- 
sane, and had, as I was told, been the occupant of a cell 
in the Lunatic Asylum, from which he had but recently 
emerged. His wife was a victim of chronic rheumatism, 
and had grown old before her time. She was still cheer- 
ful in converse, and seemed not to have altogether lost 
her early vivacity. She alluded to the scenes of the past 
in a kind and graceful manner, complained not of the 
calamities which had fallen upon her, and seemed to have 
most happily concentrated all the solicitude of her nature 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 71 

upon a darling and accomplished daughter in whose 
person and intellect she might well recognize her own 
early graces to have been reproduced. I was asked by 
these doting parents to take charge of this young lady 
that very evening and see her safely to the great party 
which Mr. Douglas was then giving to Mr. Bancroft. So, 
indeed, I did, and soon after took my leave of this inter- 
esting family, expecting never to behold two of them 
again on this side the tomb. Sic transit gloria mundi ! 

After the usual discomforts of traveling by stage, our 
party arrived at Louisville without anything having 
occurred to us worth relating. When about to com- 
mence our journey down the Ohio river on board the tine 
steamer Sultana, Colonel Wharton came to me with a 
newspaper in his hand, which he asked me to read. It 
was a number of the National Gazette, of Philadelphia, 
and gave an account of a very remarkable man who had 
just left London in disgust, and was then, as was reported, 
somewhere in the United States. This person had made 
his appearance in the British metropolis a few years before 
as the Marquis of Moscati. He had been greatly ridiculed 
in one of the Loudon newspapers, and been denounced as 
an arrant humbag,nn<l various reasons were given for thus 
assailing him. He had instituted a suit for libel, and the 
case had just been tried and determined in the Court of 
King's Bench. On the trial much evidence pro and con- 
had been adduced, of which only a small portion can be 
here mentioned. All the testimony of the defense had 
been introduced in support of the plea of j 'testification which 
had been put in. The plaintiff was proved at different 
times to have claimed the authorship of the Pelham novels, 
and yet Lord Lytton, on being brought forward to tes- 
tify, bore evidence that he was himself the sole author of 
the books in question ; but he added that he knew the 
Marquis well ; that he was, as he thought, a very amiable 



72 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

and accomplished man, and that he had repeatedly em- 
ployed him to write articles for his literary magazine ; 
that, though a foreigner by birth, he was an admirable 
English scholar, and was a man of very large attainments 
in general science. It was further proved that the plain- 
tiff claimed to be the Marquis of Moscati, of Italy ; and 
yet, was it attested, in a very clear and satisfactory man- 
ner, that there was no such Marquisate in Italy now, and 
that there never had been. It was alleged that the plain- 
till' had frequently boasted that he had fought ninety-odd 
duels and had shot every one of his antagonists in the left 
eye. It was further deposed that he had asserted himself 
to have a genuine Toledo blade, which he usually wore 
wrapped around his person, but which he could in an 
instant disengage whenever he chose to do so, and apply 
it to all the purposes for which a sword is capable of being 
used. It was proved, in addition, that he had claimed to 
have occupied a prominent position in all the great battles 
fought by Napoleon, and that he had been asked by the 
usurper, Don Miguel, to come to Portugal and take com- 
mand of all his forces, which he had emphatically refused 
to do upon the ground of his being a republican in prin- 
ciple. Of course the suit for libel failed, upon which the 
plaintiff was described to have left England in great indig- 
nation for the United States, alleging that the jury had 
found a false verdict, and that he had been cruelly perse- 
cuted in England on account' of his political opinions. 

When I had read through the article, "Now," says 
Colonel Wharton, " this man is actually on board our 
boat. He has been pointed out to me in the city, and I 
have followed him down to this spot." After saying this 
he asked me to endeavor to form an acquaintance with 
him, and see what sort of person he was. And so I did; 
and approaching the well-dressed, keen-looking, and rather 
handsome little man, who was avouched by Colonel Whar- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 73 

ton to be the person whose movements he had been watch- 
ing so closely, I accosted him very civilly, told him in a 
kind way that I knew very well who he was, and, encour- 
aging him to confess his actual identity, by assuring him 
that his republican principles, so far from raising up ene- 
mies to him in this favored country would only surround 
him with friends who would "stick closer to him than a 
brother," he finally donned the Marquisate title once more, 
though he had written his name in the book containing 
the list of steamboat passengers in such a wa} T that all the 
letters which he had inscribed there, if pronounced to- 
gether, could not be made to produce a single articulate 
sound. I soon after introduced him to all my friends on 
board as the veritable Marquis of Moscati, of Italy ; and 
all the way from Louisville to Yicksburg (at which latter 
place I left the boat and took final leave of the Marquis, 
who was bound for New Orleans) he talked almost inces- 
santly, told a thousand of the most marvelous stories of 
himself and his travels of which it is possible to conceive, 
all the while giving abundant evidence of his learning, 
his ^ood breeding, and his kind and accommodating tern- 
per. I recollect that one of the gentlemen to whom I had 
introduced him, Colonel John II. Claiborne, (then a Rep- 
resentative in Congress from the State of Mississippi,) hav- 
ing informed the Marquis that he was about to set out on 
a journey to Europe, that he expected to visit Rome in a 
month or two, and that, as he (the Marquis) had professed 
to be personally acquainted with that illustrious person- 
age, he would be glad to get a letter of introduction to 
his Papal Majesty ; he at once complied, and wrote in 
his behalf one of the most polished and elegant Latin 
epistles I ever saw, which same epistle I do not at all 
doubt my distinguished Mississippi friend yet has. 



74: CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



REMINISCENCE No. VIII. 

JOHN C. CALHOUN — JOHN P. HALE — ROBERT J. WALKER — 
HANGMAN FOOTE. 

It was early in the summer of 1848 that an occurrence 
took place in Washington city which was productive of 
great excitement at the time, and which called forth, also, 
much of that sort of crimination and recrimination which 
never fails to leave behind it feelings of permanent alien- 
ation and rancor, except, perchance, in a few bosoms of a 
more generous mold than ordinary mortals can be expect- 
ed to possess. Several of the unfortunate sons and 
daughters of a race, whom a selfish and semi-barbarous 
policy, originating in the Old World, and darkening with 
its gloomy shadow the beautiful hills and valleys of our 
own natal land for more than two sad centuries of shame 
and sorrow, were prompted by that love of freedom, which 
is everywhere inherent in the human bosom, to project a 
scheme for their own enfranchisement, and it was under- 
stood that some of them had sought concealment and 
refuge in the free States of the North, whither they had 
been counseled to go by several members of Congress of 
much and deserved prominence at the time. One or two 
of these refugees w 7 ere reported to have been in the owner- 
ship of certain Southern members of Congress, who had 
brought them to Washington, not for sale — which would 
have been a palpable violation of the then existing laws 
of the District of Columbia — but as domestic servants, 
and deemed by them, at least, altogether essential to the 
convenience and comfort of themselves and of their fam- 
ilies. A movement so unusual and seeming to bode such 
extensive mischief in the future may be easily imagined 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 7-") 

to have had a very startling influence in certain quarters, 
and much aggravation was supposed to have been lent to 
this affair by the circumstance that the members of Con- 
gress from the free States who were charged to have 
given their countenance to this project of elopement boldly 
confessed their own complicity therein, both in the news- 
papers and in the two houses of the National Legislature. 
When I reached my seat in the Senate on the morning 
after the flight of these poor children of bondage had 
occurred, I found Mr. Calhoun on his feet, and denounc- 
ing, with a fervid vehemence of tone and manner, very 
unusual with this grave and solemn Senator, what he 
depictured as a fearful outrage upon the whole body of 
Southern slave-holders — an outrage, he said, which, if 
tamely submitted to, would in a short time bring about 
the entire overthrow of a system of labor alike indispen- 
sable to the enjoyment and prosperity of the cotton and 
tobacco crowing region as to the wealth and greatness of 
other portions of the Republic. When he closed his 
remarks, not without striking indications of exhaustion 
— he came to my seat and said : " I now leave this mat- 
ter in the hands of my younger friends from the South. I 
have stood here long in the front of battle, almost single- 
handed and alone, defending the rights of our slave-hold- 
ing constituents, and I begin to feel it to be high time 
that such men as your colleague, Mr. Davis, and yourself, 
should come forward to my relief." This was an appeal 
which I found it almost impossible to resist, though really 
I had never seen the time when I would have either gone 
or sent an agent in quest of a runaway slave, and had 
always been disposed to recognize the fact that one whose 
acuteness and intelligence were such as to enable him to 
achieve his own deliverance from thraldom might be well 
presumed to be altogether capable of enjoying a state of 
freedom and of creditably maintaining his new-found 



70 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

rights. "Waiting; a few minutes for that Boanerges of 
debate, John P. Hale, of New Hampshire, to close a most 
stormy and indignant harangue, in which his facility in 
the application of potential and striking epithets had been 
fully displayed, I leaped to my feet and made, as I must 
frankly confess, under the overwhelming excitement of 
the moment, one of the most fumy, rabid, and insulting 
speeches that has ever dishonored a grave and dignified 
parliamentary body; in which I told Mr. Hale, in plain 
terms, that were he to visit any thickly-settled vicinage 
in Mississippi, and there use such language as that which 
he had just uttered, I did not at all doubt that he would 
incur the hazard of being strung up on one of the loftiest 
trees of the forest ; and that in such case, should there be 
any want of a willing executioner, I would mj^self turn 
hangman for his benefit. These frantic and indecent 
words had scarcely been enunciated ere I become painfully 
sensible of the stupid and unbecoming nature of my con- 
duct, and I would have really given worlds to recall all 
the nonsense I had uttered. 

In less than forty-eight hours I received hundreds of 
anonymous letters, filled with the most caustic revilement, 
and others inclosing the most hideous caricatures of a 
person whom these same caricatures denominated " Hang- 
man Foote." I positively writhed in agony. Never had 
nrv self-respect suffered such severe humiliation. I felt 
that the fabled shirt of Nessus was actually enveloping 
my limbs. Meanwhile, the jolly and kind-hearted Sena- 
tor from New Hampshire and myself had long since got- 
ten on good terms, and I had even taken up a decided 
liking for him on account of his genial disposition, his 
natural amiableness of temper, and his sparkling vivacity, 
either in debate or in conversation. One morning, a 
mOnth or two after the scene which has been just narrated, 
Mr. Hale came to my seat and told me he had a favor to 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 77 

ask of me, which he could not doubt that I would grant; 
that there was a young man of his acquaintance, a native 
of New Hampshire, who had been prosecuted for forgery, 
or some kindred offense, who, having been convicted, was 
then in jail. He said that the prosecution had taken place 
under Federal jurisdiction, and that the culprit would 
have to depend upon the clemency of the President of the 
United States for pardon. "Now," said he, "you are, I 
know, on most intimate terms with the Secretary of the 
Treasury, Robert J. Walker, who will, I am sure, recom- 
mend this young man for pardon on your request." He 
added, that though he could not doubt that the young 
man referred to was guilty as charged, yet he was satisfied 
that there were extenuating circumstances in the case ; 
that the offender was of very tender years and of a highly- 
respectable connection ; and he then closed by informing 
me that his sister, a young pure-minded, and affectionate 
girl, had come on all the way from New England, hoping 
to carry back with her to the bosom of his family her 
erring but much-loved brother. Mr. Hale really made 
this out to be almost a second Jenny Deans affair, and 
though, perchance, I did not actually shed many tears 
over his tender recital, it is certain that I promptly under- 
took the mission suo-o-ested. Proceeding at once to Mr. 
Walker and the President, I found no difficulty in obtain- 
ing the pardon asked for, and returned to the Capitol in 
less than two hours from the time I had set out on this 
errand of mercy. On placing the pardon in the hands of 
Mr. Hale, he introduced me to the young lady, who was 
indeed overpowered with the good tidings which I had 
brought. He then turned to her and said, in his own 
characteristic way : " Young lady, this is a gentleman of 
whom you have often heard in New England. He is one 
of the Senators from Mississippi. To him alone are you 
indebted for the liberation of your brother. When you 



/ tl 



78 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

get home again be sure to tell your friends and neighbors 
there never again to call him ' Hangman Foote.' ' 
However generous may have been Mr. Hale's intentions 
in this regard, I am constrained to acknowledge that I 
have often since had proof that this euphonious and im- 
pressive soubriquet has not yet ceased to vibrate upon the 
lips of many among the excellent descendants of the time- 
onored pilgrims. 
Mr. Calhoun is entitled to more than the casual men- 
tion which has been here made of him. He was unques- 
tionably a very extraordinary man. Few more logical 
and vigorous reasoners have ever made their appearance 
in the world. He was as pure-minded and incorruptible 
a statesman as our country has ever produced. His 
morals were such as philosophers might emulate and 
saints approve. He was intensely ambitious of public 
honors, but he would have scorned to accept the most ex- 
alted elevation which had to be reached by trickish sub- 
tlety, by hypocritical double-dealing, or by fraud. His 
knowledge of public affairs was profound, but was chiefly 
confined to the concerns of his own country. His general 
literary attainments bore no proportion to his knowledge 
of the principles upon which our Government was origin- 
ally founded, and the histories of party struggles on 
American soil. He sought not at any time to obtain re- 
cognition as a scholar, nor do I think that he had ever 
read with attention a Greek or Latin book since he left 
college. I once found him in his room glancing over the 
pages of some novel which had just emanated from the 
press; he told me that it was the first book of the sort he 
had ever read, and that he was perusing this one only at 
the request of some female friend who had sent it to him 
from Charleston a few days before for his examination. J / 
In the early part of his public career he bad entertained / 
political opinions very different from those he had adopted 



CASKET OE REMINISCENCES. 79 

in subsequent life and after his quarrel with General 
Jackson. lie had been, when Secretary of War under 
Mr. Monroe, a zealous advocate of an extended "system" of 
internal improvements by the General Government; he had 
voted in Congress some years before this for a national 
bank, and had given his deliberate sanction to the prin- 
ciple of protection. In 1833 he had become an out-and- 
out milliner, and had issued two elaborate exposes in sup- 
port of the doctrine which he had then embraced. His 
views assumed a strictly sectional character during the 
last twenty years of his life, and I am persuaded that no 
reward could have tempted him to tread upon terra firma 
anywhere north of Mason and Dixon's line. He had 
long since ceased to feel the least confidence in the per- 
manency of our Federal Union, and he often openly 
avowed the opinion that republican institutions, in their 
purest and most useful form, could only be unjje*ld in this 
hemisphere on the basis of African slavery. ^±Ie was, for 
several years previous to his decease, straggling to call 
into existence a Southern convention, through the instru- 
mentality of which he hoped to bring about a peaceful 
separation of the States. His celebrated "Address to the 
People of the South," issued about two years before his 
death, and subscribed by many who did not fully com- 
prehend its true import and purpose, was doubtless, as 
subsequent events most clearly proved, designed by him 
to pave the way to the accomplishment of the end which 
he had so much at heart. The second grand expedient 
upon which he relied for the termination of a political 
union which had positively become hateful to him was 
the assemblage of a convention at Nashville in 1850. He 
hoped that the proceedings of this body would be such as 
effectually to defeat the efforts then making in Congress 
to settle all the difficulties existing in connection with 
slavery, and enable the South to set up a new govern- 



80 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

merit, under a constitution which he repeatedly avowed 
he had prepared for her, and in which the perpetuation 
of African slavery would be a loading and fundamental 
feature. The fatal tendency of the Nashville convention 
movement was happily counteracted by the wise and manly 
conduct of its President, Judge William L. Sharkey; else 
there is no conjecturing what ruinous effects might have 
resulted from the action of this body. Some time before 
the last Congress which Mr. Calhoun attended met — in 
the month of October, 1849 — I had written a letter urg- 
ing him warmly to take the lead, upon the opening of 
Congress, in moving the admission of California. He had 
written a letter in reply stating his firm determination to 
keep California out of the Union as long as he could, but 
avowing at the same time his entire willingness to vote 
for the admission of Utah. In the latter Territory, he 
said, the convention which had assembled there had pro- 
vided for the introduction of slavery ; whereas California, 
as he had learned, was overspread with abolitionists, to 
whom, he stated, the New York regiment sent there by 
Mr. Polk had served as a nucleus. I wrote to him re- 
peatedly before he reached Washington city, urging him, 
upon various grounds, to modify his views touching this 
matter, but to no purpose. When he got to Washington 
he very soon became greatly excited, and declared to my- 
self and to others that he thought the time for compro- 
mise had gone by, and that he should hold any Southern 
man dishonored who would, in the condition of things 
then existing, initiate a proposition of that kind. At 
length the last scene of this extraordinary man's public 
career had its progress. He had caused the most elabor- 
ate speech of his life to be prepared and to be put in print. 
He was unable to deliver it, and he, therefore, got Mr. 
Mason, one of the Senators from Virginia, to read it in 
the hearing of the Senate. Never shall I forget the im- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 81 

port of that most alarming speech or Mr. Calhoun's ex- 
cited aspect while it was being read. To all the most 
menacing positions embodied therein he bowed his head 
assentingly, and looked round the Senate-room with an 
expression of fierce determination, which I had never 
een him exhibit on any other occasion. 

I greatly apprehended the effect of that speech upon the 
deliberations of the Nashville convention, which body 
was then in session. When I read it in the newspapers 
next morning I found that in the name of the South he 
had demanded a constitutional amendment, which he said 
was indispensable to the settlement of the questions in 
agitation. So, early that day, I brought the subject to 
the notice of the Senate and the country, and declared 
emphatically that I did not concur with Mr. Calhoun in 
his demand for a constitutional amendment. This/gen- 
tleman coming in while I was yet speaking, interrupted 
me for a moment, and, after interrogating me in regard 
to the allusions I had been making to himself, and after 
having heard my response thereto, he said, as reported in 
the Congressional Globe : 

"But I will say, and I say it boldly, for I am not afraid to say the 
truth on any question, that, as things now stand, the Southern States 
can not with safety remain in the Union. When this question may be 
settled, when we shall come to a constitutional understanding, is a 
question of time ; but, as things now stand, I appeal to the Senator 
from 'Mississippi if he thinks that the South can remain in the Union 
upon terms of equality.'" 

To which I am reported as having replied : 

" We can not, unless the pending questions are settled; but, in my 

opinion, these questions maybe settled, and honorably settled, within 

ten days' time." 

Then rejoined Mr. Calhoun : 

"Does the Senator think that the South can remain in the Union 
upon terms of equality without a speci ftc guarantee that she shall enjoy 
her rights unmolested '■ " ^y* 

Gr 



IS**^ 



82 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

To which the answer, as reported, was : 

kt I think she may, without any previous amendment of the Constitution. 
There we disagree." 

Mr. Calhoun then frankly responded: 

"Yes, there we .disagree entirely; and there, I think, he disagrees 
with our ancestors. I agree with them.*' 

It is evident to all minds now that had this demand 
of a new guarantee for slavery been concurred in by the 
whole South in L850 civil war would have been inevitably 
brought upon the land. It was the injudicious getting 
up of a similar demand afterward, in 1861, and the refusal 
to accede to it, which caused the war of four years through 
which the country has since passed. Whether if Mr. Cal- 
houn had lived he would have persevered in this requisi- 
tion to the extreme apparently indicated may be perhaps 
a little questionable. He greatly preferred discussion to 
the shedding of blood, and would possibly have been found 
willing to ret ' <•» his steps had he seen murder and carnage 
before him. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 83 



REMINISCENCE No. IX. 

SAFETY COMMITTEE OF NEW YORK MR. CLAY AND GENERAL 

CASS — GENERAL PIERCE — MR. BUCHANAN — MR. DOUGLAS — 
MR. DICKINSON — JEFF DAVIS. 

I have not heretofore noticed a very important move- 
ment which originated in the city of New York, (a place 
ever remarkable for its steady conservatism in national 
polities,) which, had it been allowed to progress to its 
natural and hoped-for termination, would have tended 
greatly to harmonize all the conflicting elem 'its then 
astir in the land, and would in all pro 1 lity have 
ushered in a new "era of good feelitig;." Jailing for a 
dav or two on certain friends in this great commercial 
emporium, when on my way to Washington, in the 
month of November, 1851, I was visited by a number 
of gentlemen belonging to what was then known as the 
Safety Committee of the city of New York, composed of 
a hundred individuals of great respectability and wealth, 
'which committee had rendered great service to the Union 
cause during the trying period of 1850. By these persons 
I was consulted seriously touching the expediency of get- 
ting up, if such a thing should be found practicable, a 
mixed Presidential ticket for the canvass of 1852, upon 
which should be inscribed the name of one Democrat and 
one Whig, both of whom should be known to be men of 
weight and experience, and true to the cause of the 
Union. The names of Mr. Clay and General Cass were 
the two most favored at that time in New York, and per- 
haps in every State of the North, the South, the East, 
and the West. I was greatly pleased with the scheme 
proposed, and at once agreed to co-operate therein most 



84 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

zealously The disjointed and demoralized condition of 
both the old party organizations at that time, each of 
which was known within its bosom to contain elements 
of extremism constantly threatening combustion and an- 
archy, seemed to demand very imperiously that these or- 
ganizations should be recognized as now in a defunct 
state, and that a new political party should be called into 
existence, strictly national in its character, and which 
would be strong enough to suppress faction everywhere 
and consolidate the Government upon a platform recog- 
nizing the compromise measures of 1850 as a complete 
and final settlement, in principle and in substance, of the 
distracting questions growing out of African slavery. 

Such a ticket as that suggested, it was believed, would 
sweep the Union from Maine to California, and defeat 
the hopes of those everywhere who preferred sectionalism 
to nationality. The committee promised to have suita- 
ble resolutions prepared for adoption at a large popular 
assemblage soon to be held in the city of Xew York ; and 
they engaged also to address at the proper time a letter 
to Mr. Clay, and another to General Cass, asking of them 
the privilege of using their names in the manner sug- 
gested. These letters were to be inclosed to me, on con- 
dition that I would at once hand them to the parties to 
whom they were to be directed, and would ask of them 
respectfully and earnestly a prompt response to the same. 
I had the honor to be requested also to express to the 
committee my own opinion of the project, provided that 
on Teaching Washington the views then entertained by 
me should undergo no change. In a few days the letters 
from the committee reached my hands, and I lost no time 
in delivering to Messrs. Clay and Cass the communica- 
tions addressed to them, accompanying this act with a 
very warm solicitation on my part that they would' com- 
ply with the patriotic demand with which they had been 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. . 8q 

honored. Mr. Clay was then in a very feeble state of 
health, and was not expecting even to live more than a 
year or two longer at most. He had long since ceased to 
cherish Presidential aspirations ; but his great soul was 
yet beating healthfully and fervently for his country's re- 
pose and happiness. He at once consented to pursue the 
course suggested by the committee, provided General Cass 
should agree to co-operate in the movement. Mr. Clay, 
it will be recollected, had some time before announced his 
opinion that the time had arrived for the Whig party to 
retire from the arena, and I know that he entertained 
precisely the same view in regard to the duty of those 
who constituted what was called the Democratic party. 

For a day or two after the delivery of these important 
letters I really thought most confidently that the move- 
ment must inevitably prove a great success. But the 
event showed that 1 greatly underrated the power of 
party bigotry, and the inclination almost unavoidable 
among the accustomed leaders of great political move- 
ments to rely for the attainment of desired public ends 
exclusively and implicitly upon the well-organized party 
machinery which they hold at the time under their con- 
trol, and with all the mysterious operations of • ich long 
use has rendered them thoroughly familiar. It is, per- 
haps, but natural for such persons to suppose i hat to rescue 
a country from danger by instrumentalities different from 
those they have been in the habit of employing would be 
almost equivalent to taking poison — certain to slay, in 
order to get rid of some troublesome malady, conjectured 
to be otherwise incurable. To go outside the Democratic 
party with a hope of thus finding relief for evils preying 
upon the vitals of the body politic would seem even now 
to some veteran party managers whom I know to be far 
worse than formally giving their consent to the imme- 
diate death of the Republic itself. Instead of making 



86 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

party merely a convenient, as it often is, a valuable sub- 
sidiary also to patriotism, they willingly sacrifice all 
patriotic purposes to the glory of the Democratic name 
and discipline. To reason with such persons is simply to 
waste your time, especially if they be such as have long- 
cherished desires of personal advancement by means of 
strict party support. So it was in this very instance. 
General Cass, whose aspirations to the Presidency had 
not yet left the pure and lofty bosom which they had so 
long animated, and who was now hopefully looking for- 
ward to a second nomination for the Presidency at the 
hands of the party which he had been very assiduously 
serving for a toilsome and troublous lifetime, read the let- 
ter sent him by the New York committee with equal sur- 
prise and mortification, and told me, with little appear- 
ance of gratitude for my ofiiciousness in his behalf, that 
he would consult Mr. Dickinson, Mr. Douglas, and some 
others that he named from among his -known political 
devotees, and that should they consent to his taking such 
a step as that now admonished, he would make known 
the fact as soon as he could after having been by them 
counseled to do so. In about two days he brought to me 
his letter of declension to the New York committee, and 
thus lost the best opportunity for the acquisition of true 
glory which had ever opened upon his view. Mr. Clay 
could of course only now imitate his example, and with a 
sore and aggrieved bosom I transmitted these responses 
to the appropriate destination, though not without pro- 
testing, as I have been so often constrained to do, over 
the madness as well as the dishonoring < of a cold- 

blooded and soul-withering party-poli' shall be ex- 

cused for here adding that I was the; as well satis- 

fied as ever I have subsequently become that what was 
called the Democratic party had even then degenerated 
into a selfish and spoils-adoring faction; that as a politic 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 8T 

cal organization it had lost all its lofty and disinterested 

aspirations; that it was destined only to be kept in exist- 
ence for the benefit of such party managers as might 
feel that they had no right to hope for advancement upon 
the basis of merit and qualification, and must therefore 
rely alone upon a cunning trickery, and a super-subtile 
dexterity ; and I am confident that I now see depicted 
upon the sky of a not distant future the deep disgrace 
and ruinous discomfiture which are to be hereafter the 
reward of those who, having no longer any great and 
patriotic ends to accomplish, and no distinctive principles 
to maintain, foolishly attempt to keep in existence names 
and symbols once of surpassing dignity, but which only 
now serve to cover the purposes of a low-minded ambition, 
and aid, perchance, in elevating to places of important 
public trust men whose sole usefulness really consists in 
the capability which they are seen sometimes to manifest 
of putting in use a sort of silent, whispering eloquence, a 
stupid, unharmfulness — the meet companion of this sort 
of impotencj\ In the forlorn condition of things which 
I then saw to exist I did not altogether despair, and I 
sought to anticipate the action of convention-party ma- 
chinery by getting the two houses of Congress to adopt at 
once a resolution declaring the Compromise enactments of 
1850 to be " a final settlement, in principle and substance, 
of all the distracting questions growing out of African 
slavery." This resolution I left in the Senate when I re- 
signed my seat in that body in order to return to Missis- 
sippi, where I had just been elected Governor. Though 
it did not afterward pass the Senate, in a month or two the 
same resolution found its way, almost in totldem verbis, into 
the political platforms adopted by the Democratic and 
Whig national conventions respectively; the important 
words embraced in which, it was hoped by some, might 
be respected in office by him who should be chosen Presi- 



88 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

dent in that contest, which soon after, to the surprise of 
all who could not comprehend the full force of party ma- 
chinery and unscrupulous chicane, resulted in raising to 
the office once held by a Washington and a Jackson, 
Franklin Pierce, of ]N"ew Hampshire. 

All acquainted' with the history of that time need not 
now to be told that the main question existing in the 
popular mind in the Presidential canvass of 1852 was as 
to whether General Scott or General Pierce was the bet- 
ter finality man. That is to say, whether the country 
would be, in all probability, the more effectually tran- 
quilized under the administration of the one or under 
that of the other? Mr. Pierce undoubtedly owed his 
nomination for the Presidency in 1852 mainly to the fact, 
very dexterously paraded at the time before the conven- 
tion of the Democratic party in Baltimore, that he had a 
few weeks before written and published a strong finality 
letter; but for which circumstance he would certainly 
never have had an opportunity presented to him of cruel- 
ly disappointing the hopes of a generous and confiding 
people, and of rekindling as far as it lay in his power the 
smouldering fires of sectional strife into a perilous and all- 
destroying conflagration. Surely there was nothing in 
Mr. Pierce's abilities or habits of life to cause the public 
attention to be fixed upon him as a suitable person to 
mount the car of state at a moment so critical ; and the 
furious and dashing vehemence with which he was soon 
seen to move along the political firmament might well 
have suggested to the classic mind the enterprising career 
of that fabled son of Phoebus, Phaeton by name, who is de- 
scribed as having on a certain occasion, in a moment of 
celestial frolicksomeness, set all the heavens in a blaze. 

So emphatically had Mr. Pierce been recognized every- 
where as irrevocably pledged to the compromise measures 
of 1850, and to the finality policy now annexed thereto, 



CASKET (IK REMINISCENCES. <S ( ,» 

that he notoriously lost many thousand votes in the South 
among men of secession proclivities on this account, and 
in Mississippi alone, it is within my own personal knowl- 
edge, that at least five thousand voters of this description 
refused him their support, while all who had voted for me 
in my contest with Jefferson Davis in the preceding guber- 
natorial canvass came forward cheerfully and yielded 
their full support to the opponent of that gallant, upright, 
and thrice glorious military commander, whom the Whigs 
had selected as their standard-bearer in that tierce con- 
flict. 

In reference to the matter at present under considera- 
tion, I find it stated in a work whose correctness it would 
become me least of all men living to call in question, that 
Mr. Pierce " had scarcely been elected to the Presidency 
when he called into special conference Mr. Hunter, of 
Virginia, one of the most extreme men in his opinions 
that, outside of South Carolina, the whole South con- 
tained, and the noted Caleb dishing, of Massachusetts, 
who had signalized himself very specially, many years 
before, by delivering the most furious and uncompromis- 
ing speech ever heard in Congress upon the occasion of 
Arkansas, asking admission into the Union ; who, 
although he had afterward yielded support to the admin- 
istration of Mr. Tyler for a short period, (for which his 
services had been rewarded with an Oriental coinmis- 
sionership, in which he is reported to have become quite 
a connoisseur in distinguishing between the savoiy flesh 
of ducks and that of the young froles of the canine spe- 
cies,) and though he had subsequently given his support 
to the Mexican war, and gone through certain romantic 
adventures beyond the Rio Grande without having a 
chance of staining his virgin sword with the hated blood 
of the foe, had really not a particle of claim to control the 
action of a Democratic administration entering upon its 



90 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

official career under such circumstances as those which 
now surrounded Mr. Pierce. These two sage advisers are 
understood to have counseled Mr. Pierce to call to his 
Cabinet Mr. Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, who was then 
in profound retirement after his unsuccessful experiment 
of secession in 1851, in which retirement it is quite cer- 
tain he would have permanently remained but for Mr. 
Pierce's being weak enough to act upon this advice. It 
is understood that this appointment was made with a 
view to conciliating the secessionists of the South, who 
had, as already observed, yielded to Mr. Pierce but a cold 
and reluctant support, many of them, indeed, and especially 
in Mr. Davis' own State, having altogether declined voting 
in the Presidential election. Mr. dishing, who was to be 
Attorney General under the new regime, had reason to 
believe that by force of his early political affiliations and 
by the skillful distribution of the spoils of office he would 
bring into the fold all the aspirants to public station who 
then belonged to the abolition faction of the Xorth, while 
Mr. Davis, by discriminating in appointing to office in 
favor of known disunionists and against those who had 
battled so faithfully for the Compromise measures, through- 
out the South, it was confidently expected would work 
wonders in attracting to the support of his over-confiding 
ehief the sectional factionists of that region. It was fanci- 
fully enough supposed that the friends of the Union every- 
where would infallibly remain firm in their support of 
Mr. Pierce on the ground of his former professions, so 
that there was, upon the whole, as they opined, a capital 
prospect of opening upon the country an administration 
of four vears which would be fortunate enough to awaken 
no enmities, and an equally flattering prospect that Mr. 
Pierce would himself be re-elected in 1856, or that at least 
the privilege would be accorded to him of nominating 
his own successor ; which successor would undoubtedly 



GASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 91 

have been the immortal Jeff. Davis himself ow signally 
and cruelly all these fine-spun calculate a were disap- 
pointed in the sequel, and how soon all these vapid and 
airy speculations passed away into the somber region of 
nothingness, the world now knows. Mr. Pierce, who 
imagined himself to possess, and who was supposed by 
some of his own partial friends also to possess quite a pretty 
talent for phosphorescent declamatory rhetoric, com- 
menced so soon as he had a cbance to do so, in his official 
messages and otherwise, discoursing vehemently upon the 
untold blessings of slavery. He extolled the Sunny South 
and all her peculiar modes of thought and sentiment in 
language of most glowing exuberance ; proclaimed him- 
self to all the world as a sort of heaven-descended cham- 
pion of her slave-holding rights and interests ; and very 
soon managed to disgust every truly national man in the 
country ; giving renewed organization and overwhelming 
strength to the anti-slavery associations of the North ; 
while the lavish outpouring of official patronage upon 
known Free-Soil Democrats of that section imparted so 
much of adscititious dignity to this particular class of 
individuals as enabled them to wield an almost irresistible 
potency in the Presidential contest of 1854; but not in 
or of James Buchanan ! 

Meanwhile Mr. Pierce and his worse than purblind 
Cabinet assistants openly and unblushingly interfered in 
all the political elections in all the States, (a favorite 
expedient with the spoils-loving and degenerate Democ- 
racy in these modern days,) employing patronage every- 
where in order to control votes, (thus setting the first dis- 
gusting example of this sort known in our annals,) and 
spreading through every part of the Republic such an 
abominable spirit of huckstering and corrupt political 
bargaining as even Walpole, in the palmiest days of his 
guiit-besmirched glory, had never been able to call into 



02 CASKET Of REMINISCENCES, 

existence. In less than a twelvemonth after Mr. Pierce's 
induction into the Presidency every man of solid under- 
standing, both in Congress and elsewhere, who had aided 
this ill-starred scion of the Granite State in his efforts to 
reach the Presidency, became satisfied of his utter incom- 
petency for the performance of the duties devolved on him, 
and honest men everywhere were rilled with mingled 
amazement and disgust at nearly all that was from time 
to time reported to them as occurring • ;ider the sinister 
auspices which clustered around him. or instance, such 
men as Daniel S. Dickinson and lamented Justice 

Bronson, of New York, and matty other fair-minded 
Democrats elsewhere of almost equal eminence, were 
driven, alike by a feeling of elevated self-respect and by a 
sentiment of genuine patriotism, into open opposition ; 
and innumerable official blunders, Ostencl manifestoes, and 
the like, soon rendered Mr. Pierce and his ill-assorted 
Cabinet as sublimely ridiculous before the world at large 
as the accidents of political fortune had made them pow- 
erful for mischief and impotent for any purpose of good 
within the confines of their own country. 

A fact has now to be mentioned which I shall never 
cease to regret, and which at the time of its occurrence 
filled my mind alike with surprise and chagrin. For 
Stephen A. Douglas, while he was yet living, I entertained 
a sincere friendship and respect, proof of which I could 
give, if need be, that would leave no mind in the least 
doubt. I knew him intimately for many years. I admired 
his noble and manly spirit, his remarkable energy and 
industry, his vigor and effectiveness in debate, and his 
ardent love of country. I voted for him in 1860 for the 
Presidency of the Republic, and were the contest of that 
period now to recur I should do precisely as I did then. 
He had his faults, like other men, but these faults did not 
obscure the luster of his virtues, or seriously weaken his 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 93 



claims to the esteem and gratitude of his affectionate and 
admiring countrymen. I saw Mr. Douglas for the last 
time in my own distant home in the Southwest, with the 
exception of a single other occasion, when I heard him 
address a large and enthusiastic meeting in the bosom of 
the State of Georgia. I am about to observe very briefly 
upon one of his acts, which I personally know that he 
did himself most painfully regret. I will speak of this 
act only as I have repeatedly spoken to himself of it in 
private. Of course, I am alluding to his connection with 
what is known as the Kansas-Nebraska bill, or rather to 
his agreeing to incorporate in that bill a clause repealing 
the Missouri compromise. It is known that for some 
time he was reluctant to give his assent to a proposition 
which he had so much reason to fear might revive the 
agitation which he had for so many years been laboring 
to assuage. I obtained sixteen y ears ago full evidences of 
the real facts of this case from the lips of a high-minded 
citizen of Kentucky, who I am glad to know is still liv- 
ing, and by whom the repealing proposition was first 
introduced into the National Senate. Mr. Douglas only 
agreed to become sponsor for the proposition to repeal the 
Missouri compromise after having been solicited to do so 
by certain gentlemen from the South of extreme views in 
regard to slavery, one of whom, at least, was a member, of 
Mr. Pierce's cabinet. It was even whispered to Mr. Doug- 
las that, should he yield compliance to the solicitations 
with which he was being plied, it would secure him the 
support of Mr. Pierce and his Cabinet in the then approach- 
ing Presidential race. 

•That the formal repeal of the Missouri compromise was 
a violation of the principle of finality no one will venture 
to deny who has read Mr. Douglas' admirably-drawn 
report on this subject in the Thirty-Third Congress; in 
which report, referring to the fact that the adopters of 



94 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

the Compromise of 1850 had cautiously avoided all inter- 
meddling with this very delicate question, he said : " As 
Congress deemed it wise and prudent to refrain from 
deciding the matter then, either by affirming or repealing 
the Mexican laws, or by an act declaratory of the true 
intent of the Constitution, and the extent of the protec- 
tion afforded by it to slave property in the Territories, so 
your committee are not prepared to recommend a depar- 
ture from the course pursued on that occasion, either by 
affirming or repealing the eighth section of the Missouri 
act, or by any act declaratory of the true meaning of the 
Constitution in respect to the legal points in dispute." 

Mr. Pierce came into power when the country was visi- 
bly passing into a state of happy and prosperous repose. 
He left behind him, when he returned to private life, the 
incipient mutterings of a rising tempest, whose fury, 
though once or twice intermediately suspended for a short 
period, was not to receive its final quietus until after a 
long period of blood and carnage should have been expe- 
rienced ; until the evil system of servile labor, for the 
maintenance and perpetuation of which he had toiled so 
industriously, should be seen to tumble into ruin e 
the recoiling of the forces emplo} r ed for itssupporl . until 
the Democratic cause and name should both 1 so dis- 
credited and enfeebled that no earthly power would ever 
be able to redeem them from dishonor, or render it safe or 
expedient to rely upon its boasted enginery either for the 
upholding of our national honor, or for the giving a 
healthful and beneficent propagation in foreign lands to 
the sacred principles of civil and religious liberty which 
our unequaled fathers have handed down to us and ours 
for eternal preservation. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 95 



REMINISCENCE No. X. 

MR. VAN BUR EN — MR. FORSYTH — MR. HOLT — MR. PRESTON — 
MR. PIERCE. 

It is almost unnecessary that I should state that on my 
return to Mississippi in the summer of 1836, after the visit 
to Albany already mentioned, I took an active part in the 
Presidential canvass then in progress. "W hether I rendered 
any service to the Democratic cause at that period in the 
Southwestern section of the Union it is not for me to de- 
cide. 

I should ill perform the reminiscent task which I have 
undertaken did I not here make some mention of an in- 
dividual with whom my first acquaintance was formed 
about this period, and in connection with the political 
movements then in progress. This person has since ob- 
tained much and deserved celebrity, and in the elevated 
position now occupied by him stands little in need of any 
commendation which it would be in my power to bestow 
on him. He has held many high official stations in the 
last fifteen years, and has acquired a reputation for ability 
which no one would think of calling in question. Joseph 
Holt is a native of Kentucky, and made his entree upon 
the political arena, as I have learned, under the auspices 
of the celebrated Amos Kendall, a personage whom I 
knew for many years very familiarly, and for whom I 
ever cherished a veritable respect and friendship. Mr. 
Holt was assistant editor of a well-known newspaper pub- 
lished in Kentucky of which Mr, Kendall had the chief 
control. At least this is what I have often heard stated 
by those who professed to have personal knowledge of the 
fact. He was afterward district attorney for some time 



96 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

in Louisville, and displayed such extraordinary adroit- 
ness and skill in the prosecution of criminal offenders 
that it is related as a fact that the Governor of Kentucky 
refused to continue him in the office which he so ably 
filled, expressly on the ground that it was impossible for 
any alleged culprit to escape the undergoing of legal pun- 
ishment when Mr. Holt put out his whole strength as the 
representative of the government. In 1836 Mr. Holt 
made his appearance at the National Democratic Conven- 
tion which held its session in Baltimore ; and when Col- 
onel Richard M. Johnson was put in nomination for the 
Vice Presidency, he rose upland delivered a speech in sup- 
port of his claims which is said to have surprised and 
even electrified all who listened to it. This speech im- 
mediately made its appearance in the newspapers, and 
the young Kentucky orator in a few hours experienced 
what Lord Byron so strikingly describes when he says, 
in reference to the first publication of the earlier cantos 
of Childe Harold : "I waked up in the morning and found 
myself famous." A short time after this achievement, 
Mr. Holt came to Mississippi, and his arrival there was 
productive of a most profound sensation. I well remem- 
ber calling upon him a few days subsequent to his advent 
among us, in one of the parlors of the hotel in the town 
of Clinton, then a place of much importance, in company 
with several other gentlemen, for the purpose of welcom- 
ing him to the bosom of that then prosperous common- 
wealth, and proffering him our assurances of sympathy 
and esteem. We were all struck with the modesty of his 
aspect and demeanor, and we were pained to observe 
what we thought to be the tokens of declining health — ■ 
soon, in all probability, we feared, to be succeeded by a 
premature decease. Mr. Holt lost no time in entering 
upon the brilliant forensic career which he afterward ran; 
and, by an extraordinary exercise of professional dili- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 97 

gence, as well as by giving constant evidence of ability, 
he succeeded in the short space of four or five years in ac- 
cumulating a larger estate than most lawyers are able to 
acquire by the labors of a lifetime. I heard him very 
often when ensued Ul the argument of cases of the great- 
est dignity and magnitude, and I can declare with truth 
that I have never listened to a more brilliant or effective 
advocate. He always had an air of great serenity and 
mildness when en^ao'ed in discussion, and his counte- 
nance was generally a little shaded by what seemed to be 
an expression of sadness. The tones of his voice had 
something in them inexpressibly soft and touching ; and 
so attractive did he often become, as he advanced from 
point to point, that those who heard his calm and uni- 
formly insinuating exordium were irresistibly constrained 
to remain in his presence long enough to hear the last 
words of his peroration. He indulged less than any emi- 
nent speaker I have known in gesture, and scarcely ever 
withdrew his earnest j^aze from the faces of those he was 
addressing; and, strange to say, I never saw him on any 
occasion cast an inquiring glance upon the surrounding 
audience for the wished-for tokens of approval, which is 
now so common a practice. It was then evident that 
Mr. Holt was a well-read lawyer; and the style in which 
he expressed himself, either to judge or jury, bore marks 
of very high literary culture. The contests in court 
which sometimes occurred between himself and the cele- 
brated S. S. Prentiss, of Mississippi, (of whom I am gen- 
erally supposed to know about as much as any other in- 
dividual,) would, I am certain, have commanded atten- 
tion as well as enlisted the most intense interest also even 
in Westminster Hall, or in the most renowned courts of 
the European continent, and I would now travel many 
miles to witness one such scene of intellectual digladia- 
7 R 



98 CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 

tion as I have formerly beheld with so much delight and 
admiration between these two giants of the bar. 

Mr. Holt came to see me several times in Washington 
when I had the honor to be here in a public capacity. 
On one of these occasions, I remember, he was on his way 
to the Old World, and on another I saw him after his 
return, and I listened to his glowing and graphic descrip- 
tion of all that he had been surveying, both in Europe 
and Asia, with the highest gratification. 

It has always been a source of gratulation to me that 
Mr. Holt felt a deep sympathy for me in the struggle I 
had to wage upon the soil of Mississippi in 1851 against 
the efforts then so fiercely and perse veringly made for the 
disruption of the Federal Union ; but it lias been to me 
cause of unqualified regret that this gentleman was after- 
ward compelled to suffer the most cruel injustice at the 
hands of Mr. Pierce and his ill-starred Cabinet solely on 
this account, with whom the strange and unnatural policy 
had originated of crushing out Unionism in the South 
and giving renewed ascendency to the secessionists of 
that region, notwithstanding the solemn finality pledge 
which Mr. Pierce had given before his nomination as a 
Presidential candidate. In this and in other instances of 
principle violated, I thought I then plainly discerned the 
boding of much of that evil which has since been expe- 
rienced. Mr. Holt had made several able speeches in sup- 
port of Mr. Pierce during the Presidential canvass of 1852. 
These had been widely circulated and had proved singu- 
larly effective ; but when this gentleman's warm friends 
and admirers in the Southwest — of whom I was one — 
earnestly pressed upon the President whom we had just 
elected the appointment of Mr. Holt to a foreign mission 
of only secondary grade, it was discovered that a malign 
and fatal influence had forced its way even into the 
bosom of Mr. Pierce's shallow and intriguing Cabinet, 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 99 

which rendered it alike impossible in several of the South- 
ern States that any man previously appointed to office by 
Mr. Fillmore by reason of his devotion to the cause of the 
Union could remain in public station, or that any promi- 
nent individual could receive favor at the hands of those 
who were controlling official patronage who had been 
manly enough to declare against the secessionists in Mis- 
sissippi and Georgia in the tierce contest of that period. 
So that the strange and monstrous spectacle was exhibited 
of a Government seeking to the extent of its ability to 
strengthen those whose parricidal hands had been so 
recently employed for the destruction of its own vitality ! 

I have seldom had an opportunity of holding direct per- 
sonal intercourse with Mr. Holt since he informed me by 
letter of the defeat of the application made in his behalf 
for a mission abroad and the cause of the disappointment 
of his reasonable expectation in regard to this matter. 
We have not exchanged a word of soeial amity in the last 
thirteen years, during which a dark and devastating civil 
war has rolled its waves between the subject of this notice 
and his friend of other times. I am rejoiced to know that 
Mr. Holt's health has, since I saw him last, been com- 
pletely re-established ; and that his fame is imperishably 
intertwined with the honor of his country. Maybe live 
long to enjoy the advantages of every kind by which he 
is encircled, and never see this great and glorious Repub- 
lic disturbed again as it has been since he and I sojourned 
amicably together amidst the hills and valleys of that far 
off region which the wickedness and stupidity of faction 
have forever despoiled of its dignity and happiness! 

I witnessed the inauguration of Mr. Van Buren in 
March, 1837. A vast crowd was in attendance. His 
inaugural address was short, well worded, and to the point, 
and seemed to give satifaction to most of those who had 
voted for the new President. But even then, feelings of 



100 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES, 

dissatisfaction in connection with the fiscal action of the 
Government and the general financial concerns of the 
country were beginning to disclose themselves, and seemed 
to discerning eyes to bode a most disastrous defeat of the 
democratic party in 1840. 

Mr. Van Buren is considered to have evinced much 
good sense in the selection of his Cabinet. They were all 
worth}' and pure-minded men, and bad severally given 
proof of ability in the past history of the Republic. His 
Secretary of State, John Forsyth, of Georgia, was in many 
respects one of the most remarkable men to whom our 
country lias at any time given birth. He first saw the 
light on Virginia soil, and claimed, as I have heard, the 
neighborhood of Fredericksburg as his place of nativity, 
lie emigrated to Georgia early, and bad scarcely attained 
to manhood before he began to participate in the public 
concerns of his adopted State. He was a lawyer. by pro- 
fession, and is admitted to have acquired a competent 
amount of professional learning at a very early period of 
bis career, and to have shown also an uncommon aptitude 
for politics. He was for some years a zealous and de- 
voted Federalist, and, like Mr. Berrien, his great rival in 
after times, was kept in obscurity for some years by reason 
of that fact. He was a warm supporter of Trofp and h is. 
State rights policy during the administration of John 
Quincy Adams, but is said to have acted with marked 
moderation and decorum at that stormy period. He was 
afterward Governor of the State, and in 1829 came into 
the Senate of the United States, to which he was twice 
elected, and during his occupancy of a seat in that body 
he exhibited such singular dexterity, readiness, self-pos- 
session, and vigor in debate as attracted toward him in a 
remarkable manner the respect and affectionate admira- 
tion of his fellow citizens of all parties. Mr. Forsyth was 
a man of mosl commanding person; his manners were 



GASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 101 

eminently polished and captivating,; his personal courage 
was unquestionable, and his integrity was universally 
confided in. Had he survived a few years longer it lias 
been supposed by some that lie would have attained the 
Presidential dignity itself; and had. he done so his ad- 
ministration, I am confident, would have constituted a 
bright and happy period in our annals as a nation. I have 
often heard the great contest in 1832, at the capital of 
Georgia, between himself and Mr. Berrien, involving the 
question of nullification, referred to, and it seems to have 
been the general opinion among those who witnessed it 
that Mr. Forsyth was successful in obtaining a most signal 
triumph over his accomplished and eloquent antagonist. 
How strange it is that the monster of secession should 
after such a scene as this have been able to dominate over 
the understandings and the hearts of so bold, so practical, 
and so patriotic a people ! 



102 CASKET OF REMINISCENCE*. 

REMINISCENCE Ho. XI. 

ANDREW JACKSON — HENRY CLAY — WASHINGTON — CxESARISM. 

There is no period of our history more marked with 
stirring incidents, or more replete with sound instruction, 
to such as may be able to review in a calm and unpre- 
judiced manner the character and conduct of that extra- 
ordinary man, than the eight years' administration of 
Andrew Jackson. He was accustomed to call it " my 
administration ;" for doing which certain silly sophisters 
and carping calumniators denounced and ridiculed him 
without stint or decency. Certain it was, that while he 
was the Executive chief of the nation he was " every 
inch " a President. He quailed not before domestic facr 
tion at home nor growling menaces from abroad. He was 
ever exerting himself to find out what was right and 
politic, and when he had resolved upon any particular 
course he moved forward firmly and fearlessly in the 
pathway of duty, never pausing even for a moment to 
ascertain what malignant faetionists said of him, or in 
what manner the shallow scribblers for the daily press 
misrepresented and defamed him. He had but ore rule 
of action, and that rule he found embodied in the ofKeia! 
oath which he had taken. Regarding the Constitution, 
and the laws made in conformity therewith, together with 
our treaties with foreign nations, as " the supreme law of 
the land, anything in the constitutions or law r s of the 
States to the contrary notwithstanding, " he permitted no 
body of faetionists anywhere to array themselves in arms 
against the just authority of the Government. It was 
indeed most fortunate for the country that he was known 
so well to be a man of indomitable courage and inflexible 



CASKET OF 1 ; B MINISC EN C BS. L03 

[firmness, for had this not been the case there was more 
than one occasion during his eight years of Presidential 
service when local demagogues of the hour would have 
been tempted to measure their strength with that of the 
'Government of which lie was the chosen chief. It is per- 
fectly well known to many that in 1832, when the Xulli- 
tiers of South Carolina menaced insurrectionary opposition 
to the constituted authorities of the Republic, General 
Jackson did not hesitate openly to declare his determina- 
tion to arrest several of the prominent leaders of the con- 
templated movement in Washington city, and subject 
them to prompt punishment should they persevere in their 
insane project ; nor is there much reason to doubt that 
he would in a short time have proceeded to this extremity 
but for the interposition of Mr. Clay and others co-operat- 
ing with him at that period, who succeeded in bringing 
.•about the celebrated compromise of 1832. I knew General 
Jackson well, and I am sure that a more honest, disin- 
terested, and truly patriotic man has never lived. His 
mind was active, astute, and vigorous. He was a profound 
judge of men, and had more capacity for controlling the ac- 
tion of those associated with him than any one I ever knew 
lie was a democratic-republican in principle ; was a firm 
believer in the capacity of the American people for self- 
government ; and had a just and enlightened regard for 
all " the reserved rights of the States and people ;" but 
the fanciful and absurd notion had never entered into his 
head that either the States or people had reserved to them- 
selves the right to set at naught when they pleased the 
authority of the Federal Government, or to break up a 
Union which the Articles of Confederation had declared 
to be "perpetual," and which the Constitution afterward 
adopted had expressly asserted to have been made more 
" perfect" by its own provisions. The weak and untena- 
ble position that the government of a nation has not full 



104 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

light to coerce obedience to all its legitimate behests, and 
to use all needful means for the preservation of its own 
vitality, his sound and discriminating mind could no more 
have been inclined to entertain than the unheroicand dis- 
honoring theory that a human being has no right to 
defend his own life against assailment, and in any manner 
whatever that shall be found most convenient. His 
demeanor in private life, as I personally know, was always 
kind, obliging, and courteous ; lie conversed in general 
with a modest and easy familiarity, was always profoundly 
courteous to the gentler sex, and tenderly mindful of all 
who came into his own social circle. There were subjects, 
though, the very mention of which always roused him to 
a. pitch of stormy indignation, and there were several of 
our eminent public men in whose integrity and patriotism 
he had for a long time ceased to have the smallest confi- 
dence, of whom he, indeed, occasionally spoke in terms of 
vehement denunciation. 

It has always been quite apparent to my mind that 
during his whole Presidential career General Jackson never 
once transcended the powers clearly allotted to the Execu- 
tive Department of the Government ; though the peculiar 
dangers and difficulties which he had from time to time 
to encounter more than once constrained him to resort 
to energetic expedients, and to adopt a tone and manner 
that called forth in full volume the objurgatory malevo- 
lence of his foes, who freely applied to him epithets that 
the sober pen of the impartial historian will not be found 
to justify. He was called a tyrant, a usurper, an imperial 
despot, and was charged with intending to overthrow the 
liberties of his country. Toward the close of his first term 
as President he was fiercely accused of aspiring to a third 
election, and some affected to believe that he would never 
rest satisfied until his temples should be encircled with a 
kingly diadem. This truly heroic and pure-minded man 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 105 

is reported to have been exceedingly patient and self-pos- 
sessed under this assailment, and to have rarely complained 
of the calumnies to which he was daily and hourly sub- 
jected. Doubtless he was powerfully sustained by the 
proud consciousness of his own innocence, and by the con- 
fidence which he always felt in the good sense and in the 
generous instincts of the American people. He could not 
but remember, also, how Washington himself had been 
traduced in a similar manner, and how signally his repu- 
tation had triumphed in the end over the industrious 
malice of his foes. No one, I am certain, now supposes 
Andrew Jackson to have been deficient either in integrity, 
in patriotism, or in a true devotion to the eause of civil 
and religious freedom. No one now censures him for 
having used all his constitutional powers for the preserva- 
tion of the Union against those who sought so causelessly 
in 1832 to overthrow it. Nobody now suspects him to 
have been guilty of corruption, because, under the indepen- 
dent treasury sj-stem which he had set on foot, innumer- 
able defalcations occurred among such as were trusted 
with the keeping of the public money. No intelligent 
and patriotic man now laments that he vigorously main- 
tained the principles of law and order against the anar- 
chical attempts made during his administration to under- 
mine and uproot them. No man of sense now believes 
that he was desirous of enjoying a third Presidential 
term, though it is certain that he did not deem himself 
bound, in the eircumstances which surrounded him, to 
make a premature announcement of his intention to retire. 
Had he done so, nothing is more certain than that the 
various factions who had opposed particular branches of 
his policy, though differing among themselves in regard 
to several essential matters, would have had it in their 
power to coalesce for the defeat of that very policy. It 
was never positively known that Jackson would not be a 



106 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

candidate for a third term until he had become certain 
that Martin Van Buren was almost sure to be nominated; 
who, he well knew, if elected to succeed him, might be 
confidently relied on for the maintenance of those princi- 
ples which he regarded as indispensable to the national 
safety and repose. Had he acted otherwise than he did 
in reference to this matter I should, for one, have con- 
sidered him seriously to blame. That we have now a 
republican government at all is perhaps owing to his firm- 
ness and resolution at this delicate and perilous conjunc- 
ture. 

I am really not informed, in any authentic way, that 
this illustrious personage would have allowed himself to 
be presented for a third term under any circumstances. I 
know perfectly well that he felt a profound respect for the 
character and example of Washington, who on due reflec- 
tion determined to retire to private life after the end of 
his second term. But it would be greatly wronging; Gen- 
eral Jackson not to admit that he must have been per- 
fectly aware that there was no clause in the Federal Con- 
stitution positively making the President ineligible for a 
third term. The fact that the framers of that instrument 
had, after the fullest consideration, refused to adopt such 
a clause, raises an irresistible presumption that those wise 
statesmen foresaw the possibility that some exigency might 
arise which would make it desirable that a President who 
had served two terms should be continued in office for 
four years more. What the nature of that exigency should 
be which would justify a departure from the example of 
Washington as to this matter I am myself by no means 
prepared to decide; but I am sure that I can imagine one 
which would have compelled even Washington himself to 
have become a Presidential candidate a third time. Had 
he believed at the period of his retirement that there was 
a political party in the United States in close alliance with 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 107 

the French Jacobinical faction, (as many supposed to be 
the case in 179(3,) and that this party would succeed in 
electing some such person as Robespierre, Danton, or 
.Marat to the office of President, unless he should himself 
consent to enter the field against him, I do not at all doubt 
that Washington would have felt it his duty to forego 
his own ease and happiness in order to secure his country 
from the evils which the elevation of such a monster would 
inevitably have brought upon it. I conjecture that Jack- 
son would have acted in the same manner had he seen 
any such evils likely to arise in consequence of his with- 
drawing altogether from the political arena. So again, I 
fancy, would it have been with the mild and unambitious 
Madison himself had he seen the Federal party, with all 
its sins of the war of 1812-'15 upon its head, about to 
organize anew for the purpose of electing some anti-war 
man of the Hartford Convention stamp to the Presiden- 
tial office, under whose rule a new series of alien and sedi- 
tion acts and other legislative enormities might perchance 
be attempted, and could he have been in addition satisfied 
that no man thoroughly identified with the war of that 
period except himself would be strong enough successfully 
to resist the reactionary tide. Let the Washingtonian rule 
be as sacred as any one may choose to consider it, (and 
surely I do not at all underrate that sacredness,) yet I 
opine that this, like all other general rules, would be sub- 
ject to that rule above rules, exceptio probed regulam. 

Thank Heaven, the hero of the Hermitage was saved 
from this fearful test, for he was able, without resorting 
to means at all questionable, to secure the casting of the 
Presidential mantle upon the shoulders of Mr. Van Buren, 
and, ere he took leave of public life forever, had the grati- 
fication of hearing from the lips of this gentleman before 
a hundred thousand citizens that celebrated pledge that in 
performing the Presidential functions he " would tread 
generally in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor ;" 



1(58 



CASKET OF REMEMSCENCES. 



so that Jackson was able to return to his own quiet home 
in Tennessee with the conviction resting upon Lis mind 
that he had left "this great Republic prosperous and 
happy." There he lived for eight years more, surrounded 
by all that could render his declining years peaceful and 
contented. 

No two public men in the United States were, perhaps, 
more hostile to each other for many years than were Henry 
Clay and Andrew Jackson, and yet were they strikingly 
alike in some of their leading attributes. They were both 
men of warm temperament, brave almost to a fault, patri- 
otic, devoted to their friends, truthful, honest, lovers of 
their kind, staunch supporters of the Union, and willing 
to make almost any sacrifice for the maintenance of repub- 
lican institutions. 

I wish it were in my power to record here that they 
were cordially reconciled before leaving the troublous 
stage of action whereupon each of them had borne so dis- 
tinguished and so meritorious a part. This much I can 
with truth state, as being within my own knowledge, that 
when, in 1850, citizens of the Democratic faith from re- 
mote sections of the country beset Mr. Clay for the pur- 
pose of cheering him on in the patriotic labors that were 
then imperiling his life, they often said to him, with tears 
in their eyes, "Oh, Mr. Clay, how much you remind us of 
the lamented Jackson !" Xor did this sort of salutation 
prove unpleasant to him who was the recipient of it; but, 
on the contrary, he always' expressed himself on such 
occasions as exceedingly gratified. 

It is known to many that Mr. Madison first tendered 
the commission of major general, afterward bestowed on 
General Jackson, to Mr. Clay. Had he accepted it and 
fought successfully the battle of New Orleans, as he doubt- 
less would have done, how different might have been his 
own political fortunes, and how dilferent the history of 
our country ! 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 109 



REMINISCENCE No. XII. 

JAMES BUCHANAN — ROBERT J. WALKER — JACOB THOMPSON — 
WILLIAM M. GWIN — STEPHEN A. DOUGLAS. 

The sectional agitation which Mr. Pierce's Administra- 
tion had, despite all the pledges by which it w T as hound, 
managed to call forth anew, was raging with much vio- 
lence when Mr. Buchanan came into the Presidential 
office. This latter gentleman having: been for several 
years abroad had been able to keep his mind free from 
all the excitements of the period, and having good reason 
for believing that Mr. Pierce's failure to obtain a renomi- 
nation had been greatly owing to his indiscreet, and 
indeed unpardonable, discussion in his messages and 
otherwise of the dangerous questions put to rest by the 
compromise settlement of 1850, it would have been, 
indeed, surprising had he at once proceeded to imitate the 
ill example of his discredited predecessor. The inaugural 
address which he enunciated was pre-eminently moderate 
and conservative in its tone, and was calculated to awaken 
new hope of the restoration of peace and tranquillity. 
The National Intelligencer hailed this address most rejoic- 
ingly, and proclaimed to the country that if the new 
President should carry out faithfully and persistently the 
views which he had just promulgated it would be the 
duty of all the true friends of the Union to yield to him a 
zealous and efficient support. Such, indeed, was the view 
entertained by patriotic and enlightened minds every- 
where ; and that considerable body of patriotic and 
enlightened voters who had sustained Mr. Fillmore in the 
Presidential contest of 1856 almost unanimously declared 
their determination to present no opposition to Mr. 
Buchanan's Administration so long as he should continue 



110 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

to show himself alike exempt from free-soil extremism 
and the equally dangerous dogma of pro-slavery propa- 
gandism. Never was a President of the United States 
more favorably situated than was Mr. Buchanan in the 
spring and summer of 1857 for conducting the Govern- 
ment upon broad, national principles, and securing to 
himself the glory of permanently pacificating a long dis- 
tracted country. That such was his original ambition and 
aim I have never at all doubted ; and his well-known 
instructions to Governor Walker, whom he had dis- 
patched to Kansas for the purpose of harmonizing the 
elements of discord there, then in active fermentation, 
gave most gratifying assurance to all the lovers of peace 
and political brotherhood that, come what might, the 
influence of the Government would never be wielded for 
the encouragement of sectional factions of any name or 
complexion, but be used for the upholding of the funda- 
mental principle of self-government which our fathers had 
established, even by the outpouring of their own precious 
life-blood. 

In order to understand the causes of Mr. Buchanan's 
sudden and most lamentable departure from the line of 
policy which he had prescribed to himself in the outset of 
his presidential career, it will be necessary for a moment 
to examine, in a spirit of dispassionate scrutiny, some of 
the qualities which entered into the composition of his 
own remarkable character, and to pass rapidly in review, 
also, the peculiar obstacles which he very soon found to 

set his pathway. 

I knew James Buchanan for many years, and inti- 
mately. During Mr. Polk's excellent and very successful 
administration many occurrences took place which of 
necessity brought Mr. Buchanan and myself into close and 
familiar contact. Having been twice elected by the 
National Senate to the position of chairman of the 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. Ill 

Committee on Foreign Affairs, I bad to consult with him 
often and in the most confidential maimer. He professed 
to entertain for me a warm personal friendship, and I 
never had reason to doubt the sincerity of his professions 
in this regard. I had every opportunity, alike in private 
life and amid the turmoil and excitement of political con- 
troversy, to learn his real temper and character, so as now 
to be able to speak of them with something approaching 
to authority. He was undoubtedly a man of solid and 
vigorous intellect, without having the least claim, though, 
to be ranked as a man of genius. He was said, (and so I 
suppose the fact to have been,) to be accurately informed 
in the legal profession, and well adapted to all the ordi- 
nary duties of a provincial American advocate, though 
no one would, 1 am certain, have thought of claiming for 
him a profound acquaintance with jurisprudential science, 
or bave expected from him a great and luminous argu- 
ment ..upon legal questions of particular difficulty and per- 
plexity, and especially of such as had not been already 
made the subject of repeated adjudication. His knowl- 
edge of the ancient classic writers was exceedingly imper- 
fect, and he was far from being at all familiar with any 
of the renowned British authors who, in prose and verse, 
have filled up the space of years between Chaucer and 
Macauley. When a member of the Senate of the United 
States, though his intellectual powers must bave been 
then in their prime, he was not known to deliver a single 
speech remarkable either for eloquence, for potential rea- 
soning, or for valuable practical illustration. He was 
notably deficient both in ingenuity and in rhetorical bril- 
liancy. I do not think he ever uttered a genuine witticism 
in his life; though, on social occasions, he was often more 
or less facetious, and, in what Dryden calls " the horse- 
play of raillery,"' was indeed quite an adept. Nobody, 
though, ever heard him talk stupidly or ignorantly : and 



112 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

whenever a subject chanced to be introduced with which 
he felt himself to be unacquainted he had the good sense 
to be obdurately and unmovedly silent, lie was far from 
being one of those who "wear their hearts upon their 
sleeve for daws to peck at ;" in colloquial scenes he very 
rarely expressed his opinions at all upon disputed ques- 
tions, except in language especially marked with a cau- 
tious circumspection almost amounting to timidity. In 
the ordinary scenes of social life he was exceedingly sim- 
ple and unassuming, exhibiting occasionally, but never in 
a positively offensive manner, a sort of blunt and home- 
spun frankness and familiarity which many persons found 
more or less agreeable. 

That he was himself a man of inflexible integrity I do 
not think admits of question ; though it is yet not alto- 
gether forgotten, and perhaps never will be, that in the 
earlier part of his political career he had been known once 
or twice to have become involved in perplexing predica- 
ments which exposed him to the suspicion of being a little 
insincere and ambidextrous in matters of political manage- 
ment. Fame had long set down Mr. Buchanan as having 
been a Federalist in the days of his opening manhood; 
but this charge he had always positively denied, and was 
accustomed to refer those who inquired of him relative to 
this matter to what lie deemed a decisive negative fact — ■ 
that he had marched as a common soldier from Lancaster 
to Baltimore for the defense of that city from British 
invaders in the war of 1812— *15. He had long been desir- 
ous of reaching the Presidential station ; had once or 
twice actively, but unsuccessfully, sought a conventional 
nomination; and was perhaps at last indebted for his 
being selected as the chief standard-bearer of the Democ- 
racy to the fact that his long absence from the United 
States was supposed to have neutralized ancient antipa- 
thies in his own bosom, and to have saved him from the 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 113 

discrediting responsibilities of Mr. Pierce's egregious mal- 
td ministration. 

Mr. Buchanan had always professed to hold in great 
horror the doctrines of the extreme State's rights school 
of the South ; had often ridiculed, even on public occa- 
sions, the far-famed resolutions of '98, and professed an 
ardent love of the National Union, which sentiment he 
doubtless felt. I very well recollect that he wrote to me 
an earnest and patriotic letter in the autumn of 1849, in 
favor of the Missouri compromise as a basis of settlement 
applicable, as he thought, to the questions then engaging 
the public attention, and that he wrote another letter dur- 
ing the summer of 1850 in full approval of the plan of 
adjustment then before Congress. But he had, in some 
way, learned to dread the fierce audacity of the Southern 
fire-eaters, as he was accustomed to call them, and it sev- 
eral times became obvious to me, long before he fell under 
their domination in 1860, that his fear of the leaders of 
this blustrous and menacing faction was not wholly 
unmixed with something of a respectful admiration. 

He was, as a general thing, exceedingly truthful and 
confiding, and delighted more than any public man I have 
known in what is sometimes called " crony ship," but, 
unfortunately, selected often as the special partners of his 
counsels men of very small mental caliber and who had 
recommended themselves to his regard mainly by their 
adroitness in the arts of adulation, to the influence of 
which arts he was indeed most lamentably open. It is a 
fact perfectly well known to me that General Cass, who 
occupied under his administration the office of Secretary 
of State, and whose accomplishments and prolonged public 
experience, no less than the honesty of his nature and his 
extraordinary powers of intellect, should have commanded 
for his opinions the most profound deference, had far less 
influence over Mr. Buchanan's official action than Howell 
8r 



114 CASKET 01 .ISCENCES. 

Cobb or Jacob Thompse . fact which of itself speaks 
volumes in explanation of those prodigious blunders which 
were soon to render the close of Mr. Buchanan's Presi- 
dential term the most melancholy period in our annals. 

In the summer of 1857 I reached Washington from 
California, where I had been sojourning for four years, 
and found Mr. Buchanan and his Cabinet in a very 
excited and anxious state touching the troubles then in 
progress in Kansas. Governor Walker had been there 
carrying faithfully into operation the instructions under 
which he had been sent to that region, which instructions 
Mr. Buchanan had even drawn up in his own hand- 
writing. 

In further explanation of this matter I will call to the 
notice of those who are honoring these reminiscences with 
a perusal a short extract from a volume which I published 
seven years ago, none of the material statements con- 
tained in which have ever yet been, so far at least as I am 
informed, at all impugned: 

"Just about this time certain leading politicians in 
Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina commenced a 
course of open and unmeasured denunciation of Mr. Bu- 
chanan on account of his having sent Governor Walker 
to Kansas, and on account of the acts of this latter per- 
sonage as Governor of the Territory^, charging the Presi- 
dent with the basest ingratitude to the Southern States 
and people, to whose support they asserted him to have 
chiefly owed his elevation, and menacing him in addition 
with such opposition in Congress and elsewhere as would 
speedily bring him to punishment for the gross infidelity 
which they accused him of having exhibited toward his 
political benefactors. Fearing very seriously the effect 
of these movements upon Mr. - Buchanan, whom I well 
knew to be morbidly sensitive to public reproach, and 
solicitous, beyond the wise sedateness of statesmanship, 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 115 

to please everybody, I had now visited Washington, hop- 
ing there to find out whether there was any likelihood of 
the administration's recoiling from the attitude which it 
then occupied. There I soon learned, from the lips of 
Mr. Jacob Thompson and others, that though Mr. Bu- 
chanan had been much galled and mortified by the course 
pursued toward him in the Southern States, he was re- 
solved to stand firmly by Governor Walker and non-in- 
tervention in Kansas, whatever might be the consequences 
of his doing so to himself personally, or to the future 
prosperity of his administration. Mr. Thompson having 
himself expressed strong fears that in the Southwest, par- 
ticularly in Mississippi and the adjoining States, Senators 
Davis and Brown, and others in- alliance with them, 
might succeed, if not promptly counteracted, in mislead- 
ing their fellow-citizens touching the Kansas imbroglio, I 
volunteered to go in that direction myself, for the pur- 
pose of employing such influence as might yet remain to 
me, after a four years' absence, in furthering a cause 
which I had ever had so much at heart. I set out ac- 
cordingly, and journeyed at once to the city of Memphis, 
where, being invited to address my fellow-citizens, I at- 
tended a large popular assemblage, convoked under the 
auspices of the most influential public persons in that 
vicinage, over which the eminently patriotic ex-Governor 
Jones presided, and in a harangue of several hours' dura- 
tion I called the attention of those present to the then ex- 
isting condition of public affairs, and labored to show 
them that it was the true policy of the South, as of the 
whole country besides, to yield to Mr. Buchanan the 
most zealous and unremitting support at that perilous 
conjuncture. The address which I delivered on this oc- 
casion, with the evidences of popular approval which the 
suggestions embodied therein had elicited, in manner and 
form precisely as the same were set forth in the news- 



116 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

papers of the vicinage, I took occasion to transmit direct- 
ly to Washington for Mr. Buchanan's examination, and 
quickly moved on to the capital of Mississippi, confidently 
expecting there to obtain a similar indorsement of the 
non-intervention attitude of the administration. On 
reaching this place, and on learning that the two Missis- 
sippi Senators, Messrs. Davis and Brown, had both ad- 
dressed a large public meeting at the Capitol the evening 
before my arrival in Jackson, and that each of these gen- 
tlemen had denounced Mr. Buchanan in unmeasured 
terms, I accepted an invitation to speak at the same 
place the very evening after; having done which, and 
having procured similar testimonials of approval of the 
President and his non-intervention policy as I had ob- 
tained at Memphis, I forwarded these also to Washing- 
ton to the address of the Hon. William M. Gwin, then in 
that city, to be handed over to Mr. Buchanan for his en- 
couragement. It was unfortunately of no avail that 
these efforts to reassure Mr. Buchanan were at that time 
essayed by myself and others ; he had already become 
thoroughly panic-stricken ; the howlings of the bull-dog 
of secession had fairly frightened him out of his wits, and 
he ingloriously resolved to yield without further resist- 
ance to the decrial and villification to which he had been 
so acrimoniously subjected. In point of fact, a week or 
two thereafter the Hon. Glancy Jones, of Pennsylvania, 
a well-known and confidential friend of Mr. Buchanan, 
published in the newspapers a letter in which the first 
significant foreshadowings appeared of the President's 
determination to go over — horse, foot, and dragoons — to 
the secession faction." 

In common with thousands of others I had now be- 
come seriously alarmed at the condition of the country. 
L knew well that a scheme for the destruction of the 
Union had been long on foot in the South. I'knew quite 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 117 

as well that the leaders of this movement were only wait- 
ing for the enfeebling of the Democratic party in the 
ISTorth, and the general triumph of Free-soilism as a con- 
sequence thereof, to alarm the whole South into acqui- 
escence in theiii policy. I was satisfied that if that most 
unwise and corrupt measure, the Lecompton constitution, 
should be approved in Congress, on the recommendation 
of Mr. Buchanan and by the votes of Democratic members 
of Congress, the Democratic organization in the States of 
the North , already sadly weakened and demoralized by the 
causes heretofore enumerated, would forever lose its 
power for usefulness, and dwindle into just such a 
wretched and discordant faction as it has ever been since. 
I felt, as many other persons felt also, that the attempt 
now making; in Congress to force through the infamous 
Lecompton bill would permanently dishonor the South, 
which would now, for the first time in her history, be 
justly accused of having given her deliberate sanction to 
a trickish and dishonest attempt to fasten slavery upon 
an unwilling and fiercely-resisting people by a fraud 
which no one could deny to have been perpetrated. 
With such views and feelings I visited Washington dux- 
ing the session of Congress of 1857-'58, and immediately 
had recourse to General Cass and others who stood high 
in my confidence, and protested solemnly against the 
action which has just been described. General Cass at 
once confessed, frankly, his entire condemnation of Mr. 
Buchanan's conduct in the Lecompton matter, and earn- 
estly besought me to go at once to him and remonstrate 
solemnly against his further perseverance in the mad 
course which he had been induced to adopt. This I, of 
course, declined doing unless the President should do me 
the honor of asking my advice, which I felt it to be cer- 
tain that he would never think of. 

Thus, by this most disgraceful procedure, and sc^ 



118 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

others of a kindred cast, adopted at that period, did the 
Democratic party forever lose its dignity as a great 
national organization and sink down into a mere sectional 
faction, powerless for all real good, yet fearfully potential 

c evil. • 

There are one or two incidents of this period which I 
will relate here as strikingly illustrative of the condi- 
tion of things then existing. I went one day into the 
Department of the Treasury on official husiness. When 
this had been concluded, Howell Cobb turned to me and 
said that he hoped I would do what I could to aid the 
Administration in carrying through Congress the Le- 
compton bill. I asked him what prospect there was of 
its being adopted. To which he responded briskly : "Oh, 
I think that we shall get it through. We have now se- 
cured almost as many votes as will be necessary to its 
passage ; and you know that this Department is always, 
in such a struggle, good for at least twenty votes." 
"Great God !" I said, "and has the Democratic party sunk 
so low as to seek to procure the adoption of a measure 
notoriously corrupt in itself by administering official 
bribes to the trusted representatives of the people ?" This 
was the last familiar conversation I ever held with this 
once loved and respected citizen of Georgia. 

A night or two after I chanced to attend a party at 
the house of the British Minister. I was passing through 
one of the most crowded rooms, when I saw a special 
coterie engaged in animated conversation. The distin- 
guished Jeremiah S. Black, then Attorney General, was 
one of the group, and the lamented Mrs. Greenough an- 
other. As I passed, this good lady called to me and said: 
"We are discussing a question, Governor, in relation to 
which I should like to know your opinion. I am insist- 
ing that Mr. Buchanan ought to be brought forward a 
second time for the Presidency; what think you as to 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 119 

this matter ?" To which I responded, I fear, in a style a 
little too abrupt : "Why, madam, Mr. Buchanan may be 
entitled in the estimation of his admiring friends to a re- 
nomination, but could he with honor accept it, having 
heretofore given a deliberate and public pledge not to al- 
low his name thus to be made use of?" 

After Mr. Buchanan had sent into Congress two 
several messages earnestly recommending to that body 
the ratification of the Lecompton swindle, he began to 
grow exceedingly restless and uneasy, and I conversed 
with more than a dozen members of Congress, who in- 
formed me that they had just come from the White 
House, where the anxious President had urged them, in 
language almost of imprecation, for God's sake not to for- 
sake him and the true Democratic cause at this crisis. I 
heard from the lips of the brilliant and eccentric Mr. 
Toombs, about this period, a rather amusing anecdote, 
alike illustrative of the uneasiness of Mr. Buchanan as to 
the fate of this pet scheme of his in Congress, and of his 
ingenuity in devising new schemes for the strengthening 
of his position. Mr. Toombs said that a few days before 
he had visited the Presidential Mansion', when the con- 
versation chancing to turn upon the troubles then exist- 
ing in Congress the poor President said: "Mr. Toombs, 
when I was*"a member of Congress some years ago, and the 
Democratic party was at any time hard pressed, we always 
went into a caucus, where it was ever found quite'easy to re- 
concile discordances and secure a union of party strength. 
Why do you not call a Democratic caucus in Congress now? 
I am certain that it would be attended with exceedingly 
beneficial effects." 

"Oh !" responded the ever-facetious Toombs, "Oh, Mr. 
President, you have evidently forgotten my own political 
history a little. When I came first into Congress as a 
Senator, a few years ago, I did so as a Union Whig. I 



120 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

could not, therefore, you know, with any appearance of 
propriety, go into a strictly Democratic caucus until the 
expiration of my present Senatorial term. I have been 
recently elected for a new term of six years by Demo- 
cratic votes. This term will commence on the coming 
4th of March. "Wait patiently, I pray you, for a few 
weeks, and I promise to be as good a caucus Democrat as 
ever you heard of." 

On a cold and bright Sunday morning, the very day 
before I left Washington for the South, I met Mr. Bu- 
chanan on the street-side. He was just returning from 
Senator Bright's on foot, whither he had escorted his 
charming daughter from church. He was looking very 
well, and seemed quite cheerful. He advanced and 
saluted me quite cordially, and complained that I had 
not been to see him. To which I answered : "Mr. Presi- 
dent, I should, under circumstances a little different from 
those now existing, have delighted to call upon you." 
I added, "Mr. President, I shall be off for the South to- 
morrow, and I wish I could return to my own home with- 
out carrying with me feelings of great uneasiness in re- 
gard to the condition of the country. I fear that this 
Lecompton experiment has been fatal to the Democratic 
organization of the North ; that the Republican party 
will signally triumph in the Presidential election of 1860, 
and that the secession leaders of the South, with whom 
you now seem to be in close alliance, will sieze the op- 
portunity which will be then afforded them of attempting 
to destroy the Union. Mr. President, I know the men 
upon whom you are now relying better than you do ; as 
sure as there is a God in Heaven you will be compelled 
to fio\ht against them for the maintenance of the Gov- 
ernment itself before your term of Presidential duty shall 
have drawn to a close." 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 121 

lie responded, evidently with much embarrassment, 
pretty much as follows : 

"Let me say to you, sir, in frankness, that should such 
dangers arise as those to which you refer, I shall know 
how to do my duty. In 1852 I sought the Presidential 
nomination at the hands of the Democratic party. In 
1856 this nomination sought me. I made no effort to 
procure it. My position is therefore one of independence, 
and should any body of men anywhere attempt to subvert 
this Government whose executive chief I am, I shall know 
well how to deal with them, and the whole Republic will 
find me religiously faithful to the great trust with which 
I have been invested." I replied : "I doubt not the good- 
ness of your intentions ; I trust that you will prove in all 
respects equal to the perilous conjuncture which I am 
sure is not far distant ; but I fear much that you are con- 
fiding in the friendship and integrity of some who will 
fail you when the moment of greatest danger shall ar- 
rive." 

So saying, I bade him good-by, never to see him r 
on this side the grave. 

AVhat difficulties he had afterward to encounter ; how 
lie joined at the White House, a month or two after, in 
the silly rejoicings which there took place over the adop- 
tion of what was called the English bill ; how he openly 
took part in the efforts made in Illinois to defeat Mr. 
Douglas ; how he yielded his countenance to the proceed- 
ings in the Charleston convention, which fatally broke 
up the unity of the Democratic party ; how he gave his 
indirect sanction to that monstrous alteration in the 
national Democratic platform, confessedly intended to 
give to slavery an "aggressive attitude ;" how he enter- 
tained in the White House the secession leaders when 
they were on their way to Baltimore, after they had dis- 
gracefully abandoned their seats in the Charleston con- 



122 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

vention, because of the nomination of the high-souled 
and heroic Douglas ; how the attempt was made in 
Charleston by the opponents of this noble martyr to the 
cause of principle to call to the Presidency of the Union 
the man who in 1851 had arduously sought to destroy 
this Government, and who was known to all the world 
to be thoroughly committed to the fearful dogma of se- 
cession ; how several of Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet after- 
ward aided in the secret concoction of a scheme for the 
overthrow of a Government with which they had a close 
official connection, and co-operated in an effort to murder 
that sacred Constitution which they had solemnly sworn 
to support ; how Mr. Buchanan himself was persuaded 
ingloriously to relinquish all attempts to maintain the 
authority which had been intrusted to him, on the ab- 
surd ground that the Government founded by our sage 
forefathers had been given no power of self -protection 
against lawless and unprovoked violence, are matters 
which already belong to history and which the bloody 
occurrences of a fratricidal war have engraved in char- 
acters more durable than brass itself upon the hearts and 
understandings of all America. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 123 



REMINISCENCE No. XIII. 

WM. H. SEWARD — ABRAHAM LINCOLN — CHARLES FRANCIS 

ADAMS. 

I have arrived at a very interesting point in the history 
of the past. A very striking and peculiar character now 
conies up for our special observation. Few men have 
done or said more to secure the lasting remembrance of 
mankind, either for the good that he did or the good that 
he failed to accomplish, than William H. Seward. I w T as 
well acquainted with him, without ever having possessed 
his full confidence, and without ever having desired to 
possess it. I was never his personal enemy. The rela- 
tions existing between us never rose to the dignity of 
friendship. I always looked upon him as a considerable 
figure upon the picture of political and social life in this 
country. I regarded him as a man of many peculiarities > 
and made him a special object of my study from the 
moment of my being introduced to him on a steamboat 
descending the North river, in New r York, up to the period 
of his departure from the realms of mortality. 

I shall speak of him as I think, and as I have continu- 
ously thought of him now for twenty-five years, " neither 
extenuating nor setting down aught in malice," being 
duly mindful of the w r ords of Antony over the dead body 
of the murdered Julius: " The evil which men do lives 
after them ; the good is oft interred with their bones. So 
let it be with Csesar !" 

William H. Seward was undoubtedly one of the best 
educated young men on this continent when he left his 
father's home for the sunny plains of Georgia, and he there 
discharged the duties of a vocation held in peculiar honor 
in all truly civilized and refined communities under the 



124 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

sun. I have never doubted that lie himself derived as 
much of improvement from his occupation as a school- 
master in the days of his early manhood as it was possible 
even for his pupils to do under that industrious and skill- 
ful performance of his preceptorial functions, for which 
he has been given credit. The knowledge which he had 
himself acquired at college became more thoroughly 
engrafted upon his memory, and must have assumed a 
more digested and orderly character, adapting it more con- 
veniently to the practical uses of life. I should not pro- 
nounce, though, that he ever became a thoroughly ripe 
scholar, being in this respect, as I venture to suggest, 
greatly inferior to Rufus ^ Choate, Edward Everett, 
Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, Caleb Gushing, John 
Quincy \ lams, and some others whom it would be easy 
to name Ht^was the maker of many speeches, but he had 
written far more than he had spoken ; a truth which no 
one will be disposed to question after having learned that 
he wrote much which was never orally enunciated, and 
that he never spoke what he had not already first written. 
His style of composition had many excellencies, and but 
few positive faults. He wrote in a clear, polished, and 
vigorous style, seldom using more words than were neces- 
sary to express his meaning, and rarely leaving his mean- 
ing so involved in ill-selected words as not to be easy of 
apprehension, even to an ordinary reader. He possessed 
in a Irish degree as a writer both the suaviter in modo and 
the fortiter in re — never, or very rarely, running into the 
error confessed by Horace, in his "Ars Poetica," when he 
says: " Breve esse laboro ; Jio obscurus ;" while it must be 
admitted that he never rose to the dignity and elegance of 
a Cicero or a Macaulay, and never exhibited the grandeur 
or profoundity of a Burke or a Webster. He was a good 
deal given to facetiousness, but I never heard him utter a 
decidedly brilliant witticism in my life. His memory was 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 125 

most extraordinary, and lie kept it in good condition by 
constant exercise. His capacity for reasoning upon any 
given question was far superior to his judgment of either 
men or thing's. He did not seem to me to be so desirous 
of ascertaining the exact truth about any matter of dis- 
pute which he professed to be seeking to elucidate, as to 
make the most plausible showing possible for the side of 
the question which he had himself espoused. His tem- 
perament was cold and unexcitable ; he had really no 
intense emotions, and he therefore never fell into the lan- 
guage of passion. His imagination was dull and sluggish, 
though he had labored hard to lash it into activity. He 
bad indefatigably sought to fill his memory with the 
beauties of speech which had originated in other minds 
but without being able completely to assimilate what he 
had thus borrowed with his own native stores ; so that 
when he was ambitious of adorning his elocution with 
figurative illustrations he wore the air of a frigid and 
passionless reciter of the fine utterances of others far more 
than he did that of a sublime and electrical enunciator of 
grand ideas and startling sentiments originating in a 
moment o peculiar inspiration in the mind of the orator 
himself. '} he labor of a lifetime might have qualified him, 
perhaps, almost to have written such a work as that 
bequeathed to the world by Quintillian ; no amount of 
industry, no concurrence of fortunate circumstances, could 
ever have enabled him to attain a height of oratorical 
excellence which might suggest to the minds of those who 
listened to him the propriety of comparing him to a 
Demosthenes, a Cicero, a Chatham, or a Clay. His manner 
as a speaker was far below his matter in point of dignity 
and imprcssivenes-. His person was diminutive; his face 
was almost beardless ; he had a cold gray eye, which never 
glistened with excitement, and never mellowed with sym- 
pathetic emotion ; his movements, when on his legs, were 



126 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES, 

awkward and shambling ; his voice was husky and indis- 
tinct ; he read in a cold and overstrained manner what 
h*e had carefully prepared for the occasion ; or, if he 
uttered several paragraphs from memory, without referring 
to the elaborate notes which he had prepared, he had ever 
and anon to throw his eyes upon the paper before him so 
as to be bled to go throuo'h with what he called his 
speech. Such a discourse as this, delivered in the manner 
I have described, might pass very well for a lecture, but 
it is as far from being such oratory as the rhetoricians of 
old have described as anything which could be possibly 
imagined. 

I have heard Mr. Seward, more than once, when vio- 
lently assailed in the Senate, declare that it had long been 
with him a rule of life never to grow angry under coarse 
and unjust decrial, and never to retaliate words of per- 
sonal insult. I can well believe this statement to be true. 
"Whether he was always able to avoid the feeling of resent- 
ment under supposed injury may be a question, and I con- 
fess that I am among those who suppose him to have been, 
in a quiet way, an exceedingly good hater. 

He had a great and peculiar turn for what is called 
diplomacy. The order of his mind admirably fitted him 
for the cool and subtle discussion of questions growing- 
out of international intercourse ; and I doubt not that his 
correspondence with American Ministers abroad whilst 
Secretary of State will pass down to posterity with distin- 
guished honor, and be read by generations yet to come 
with instruction, with entertainment, and even with ever- 
increasing admiration. 

I do not at all agree with those of the present day who 
attribute the whole administrative policy of Mr. Lincoln 
to the personage of whom I am now speaking. Abraham 
Lincoln Avas far better fitted for the general functions of 
the high office which he filled with so much credit to him- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 127 

self, and with such lasting honor to the Republic, than 
William H. Seward would have shown himself to be had 
he ever attained the Presidency. I should rather be 
inclined to attribute the zigzag; and blundering adminis- 
tration of Andrew Johnson to the unhappy inspiration of 
his renowned Secretary of State. It was the ambitious 
and contriving mind of the great political manager of New 
York which originated the " my policy " series of mea- 
sures adopted by the maladroit Johnson in order to recon- 
struct the States just coming out of the rebellion before 
Congress could come together for the purpose of settling 
the modus operandi of a proceeding which unquestionably 
belonged to the legislative department of the Government. 
In fact, Mr. Seward, in a well-known and carefully pre- 
pared speech of his, delivered at his own home in New 
York, during the summer or autumn of 1865, asserted in 
the most emphatic manner that the reconstruction policy 
of Johnson, which many persons then thought might 
prove a great success, had originated with the antecedent 
Administration. This was evidently intended to secure 
to himself the credit of having controlled both Adminis- 
trations. It is certain that Mr. Seward warmly approved 
of President Johnson's whole course, up to the day of his 
leaving Washington for the mountains of East Tennessee. 
He attended him in that romantic and most memorable 
ramble made by the enterprising Johnson, when he* was 
"swinging" so ominously " round the circle." He aided 
him in the huge attempt to get up a third party at Phila- 
delphia, which was expected to secure the election of 
Andrew Johnson for a second Presidential term. He 
co-operated heartily with Andrew Johnson in that most 
unwise and ungracious act of setting aside the noble com- 
pact of surrender agreed upon between General Sherman 
and General Joe Johnston, which the lamented Lincoln 
would certainly have ratified most cordially had he con- 




128 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

tinued to live, and the execution of which would, seven 
years ago, have restored all the States and people of this 
Republic to their condition of primeval tranquillity and 
brotherhood. Mr. Seward, it should never be forgotten j 
sent by telegram to Washington city the evidence of his 
warm approval of the silliest and most malignant speech 
which even Andrew Johnson ever made ; I allude to that 
one delivered by him on the night of the 22d of February, 
1866 ; after the pouring out which, he became, in the ex. 
alted station which he occupied, utterly powerless for any 
good whatever, and even the prolific source of woes innu- 
merable. Oh, no! let William II. Seward have all the honors 
awarded to him which he justly deserves to have ; but let 
us not " rob Peter to pay Paul ;" let us not deprive the 
martyred Lincoln of the glories which so splendidly encir- 
cle his name, and which, next to Washington himself, in 
my judgment, over all other Presidents which the country 
has yet known, he deserves to have accorded to him by 
the children and the children's children of those for whom 
he toiled, thought, and died. 

The best specimen of Mr. Seward's prolific pen is per- 
haps "The Life of John Quincy Adams." It is indeed a 
most readable and instructive volume, does full justice to 
the character and public services of the eminent states- 
man whom he has undertaken to depict w», and, I am 
glad to know, is most generously appreciated by his ac- 
complished son, whose respect and admiration for Mr. 
Seward may be supposed, on a recent occasion, to have 
assumed a somewhat extravagant form, without gravely 
calling in question either the feelings of his heart or the 
general soundness of his judgment. 

In the last days of the session of Congress, terminating 
on the night of the 3d of March, 1849, Mr. Douglas, of 
Illinois, raised an important test question in connection 
with the bill, then on its passage, for the organization of 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. '129 

the new Territory of Oregon, by the introduction of an 
amendment providing for the extension of the Missouri 
compromise line of 36° 30' to the Pacific ocean. Mr. 
Seward, being very much opposed to such a settlement of 
the pending question of slavery as this amendment con- 
templated, before even he had yet taken his scat in the 
national Senate, occupied himself very industriously in 
securing the defeat of this measure, an account of which 
exploit he immediately thereafter published, over his own 
signature, in the National Intelligencer. In illustration of 
his conduct on this occasion, it is due to Mr. Seward to 
publish the following extract of a speech of his upon the 
compromise measures of 1850. He said: "It is insisted 
that the admission of California shall be attended by a 
compromise of questions growing out of slavery. I am 
opposed to any such compromise, in any and in all the 
forms in which it has been proposed, because, while ad- 
mitting the purity and the patriotism of all from whom 
it is my misfortune to differ, I think all legislative com- 
promises which are not absolutely necessary radically 
wrong and essentially vicious." 

Mr. Seward delivered a very remarkable speech in 
Cleveland, Ohio, in 1818, in which he said: "There are 
two antagonist! cal elements of society in America, free- 
dom and slavery. Freedom is in harmony with our sys- 
tem of government and with the spirit of the age, and is 
therefore passive and quiescent. Slavery is in conflict 
with that system, with justice, and with humanity, and 
is therefore organized, defensive, and active, and perpetu- 
ally aggressive." 

These are words of very striking import, and, joined 
with Mr. Yancey's noted declaration in 1860, that the 
time had come to make slavery aggressive, may prove 
very worthy of calm consideration among the generations 
hereafter to inherit the free soil of America. It is quite 
On 



130 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

/a remarkable fact that a little more than ten years after 
the Cleveland speech Mr. Seward himself became a zeal- 
ous advocate of compromise. 

There was one portion of this same Cleveland speech 
which was of a highly inflammatory tendency, and plainly 
menaced civil war ; on reading which one can hardly help 
being struck with the remarkable contrast apparent be- 
tween the spirit therein displayed by Mr. Seward and 
that breathed by Mr. Burke when saying: "We ought 
to act in political affairs with all the moderation which 
does not absolutely enervate that vigor and repress that 
fervency of spirit without which the best wishes for the 
public good must evaporate in empty speculation." 

During my stay in Washington pending the discus- 
sions on the Lecompton bill heretofore referred to — that 
is to say, in the winter of 1858 — I had the unexpected 
honor of being invited to a well-known restaurant in 
that city. Of course' I did not refuse the kindly sum- 
mons, and proceeded at the time appointed to the place 
specified. Before I had reached the banqueting hall some 
special information was communicated to me which I 
will now proceed to narrate. General kelson, the per- 
sonage who figured so prominently in Kentucky and 
Tennessee during the late war, and who was so unfortu- 
nately killed in private combat at Louisville by that 
General Davis who has recently been winning so much 
renown on the Pacific slope, when walking to the Capi- 
tol, on the morning immediately preceding the dinner 
scene presently to be described, had accidentally en- 
countered a well-dressed Englishman, of rather an eccen- 
tric appearance and manners, who inquired in a decided- 
ly eockneyish style, as was reported to me, the way to the 
room in which the Supreme Court of the United States 
was holding its sittings. After the desired information 
had been supplied, a sort of miscellaneous conversation 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 131 

sprang up between General Nelson and his supposed Lon- 
don acquaintance. He resolved to go with him to the 
Supreme Court-room, that he might there see more of him. 
While sitting there, it struck him that a very funny ban- 
queting scene might be gotten up, if he should draw up a 
card of invitation to the aforesaid son of "The Fast- An- 
chored Isle," requesting him in the name of several dis- 
tinguished members of Congress — easy to be obtained — 
to accept, that very evening, a social repast, to be given 
in honor of her Majesty, Queen Victoria, and the British 
people. This invitation had been very courteously ac- 
cepted, and when I reached the designated place of social 
reunion, I found an exceedingly gay and splendid com- 
pany assembled. The English guest was of course occu- 
pying the seat of honor, and at different parts of the table 
were to be seen Vice President Breckinridge, William H. 
Seward, Colonel Orr, the late Minister to Russia, who 
was then Speaker of the House of Representatives ; Lewis 
D. Campbell, of Ohio; the celebrated Humphrey Marshall, 
of Kentucky ; Albert Pike, the erudite lawyer, the bril- 
liant colloquialist, and of late, as I am glad to learn, the 
author of a most profound and entertaining work on 
Comparative Philology ; General Nelson himself, and 
this reminiscent. Dinner had already commenced when 
I reached the arena of action, and the first glass of wine 
was about to bo drunk. A sentiment preceded it, which, 
being in honor of her gracious Majesty, the Queen of the 
British realm, called her loyal subject to his feet ; when, 
without the least embarrassment, in as easy, dignified, 
and graceful a style as either Lord Chesterfield or Lord 
Palmerston could have exhibited, he poured forth an im- 
promptu response which was in all respects a perfect 
masterpiece of its kind. The whole company was mani- 
festly thrown aback by a display so unlooked for. After 
a while the wine began to circulate very freely ; glass after 



132 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

glass was drunk with hearty good "will, while choice anec- 
dote, brilliant repartee, and songs, both merry and pa- 
thetic, served to enliven the occasion. Just as the com- 
pany was rising from the table, Mr. Seward, who had al- 
ready contributed at least his full quota to our entertain- 
ment, rose, and with more than usual gravity, asked to 
be permitted to offer a sentiment, to which all the com- 
pany assenting, he said : "Gentlemen, it has been my for- 
tune to occupy a seat in Congress, as you all very well 
know, for many years, during which period I have made 
one of many genial meetings like the present. I lament 
to say, gentlemen, that it has uniformly happened here- 
tofore on such occasions that the concord and agreeable 
hilarity of the dinner scene have been more or less marred 
by the unhappy introduction of irritating sectional topics. 
To-day nothing of the sort has occurred, a circumstance 
to me exceedingly gratifying, I now give you, gentle- 
men, the following sentiment : 'Ma}^ many such pleasant 
banquets as this hereafter occur among us, and may none 
of them be interrupted or rendered less agreeable by the 
introduction of sectional topics.' " 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. L33 

REMINISCENCE No: XIV. 

LINCOLN — BUCHANAN — DOUGLAS — JOHN SLIDELL. 

It is with feelings of peculiar solemnity that I proceed 
to state some recollections connected with the coming of 
Abraham Lincoln into the office of President of the Uni- 
ted States. This event stands inseparably connected with 
others of the greatest and most painful import. I hope, 
in mentioning my own remembrances of the various mat- 
ters alluded to I may do injustice to neither the living 
nor the dead ; but a frank and unvarnished exposition has 
become necessary of certain occurrences which have too 
long been the subject of the grossest misrepresentation, 
and, therefore, the source of much error and of much 
suffering. Abraham Lincoln was by birth a Southern 
man, having been born on the soil of Kentucky. He was 
in the beginning of his career poor and obscure, and had 
to work for his livelihood. He was an attorney by pro- 
fession, and had so conducted himself amid the multiplied 
temptations which beset the vocation in which he had 
enlisted as to be everywhere recognized in a very special 
manner as an honest lawyer. No suspicion was ever 
breathed as to his intregity or truth. Pie is known to 
have been personally brave, and it was universally under- 
stood of him that while never insulting any one, he never 
quietly submitted to indignity or outrage. In all respects 
he was a man of sound and unimpeachable morality, and 
he had ever proved himself an affectionate and attentive 
husband, a tender and providing parent, and a firm and 
steadfast friend to all for whom he had once professed 
amity. I doubt if there ever was a more upright and 
reliable person on the soil of this continent than the 
individual of whom I am now writing. He was not an 



184 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

abolitionist, in the ordinary sense of that word, at any 
period of his life, though he had always disapproved of 
slavery in all its forms, and would at any time have 
rejoiced to see it brought to an end in all the States of the 
Union, in some peaceful and constitutional manner. He 
was a firm and inflexible supporter of the Constitution of 
the United States, and had no inclination to disturb any 
of its guarantees so long as that instrument should remain 
unaltered. He was, doubtless, sagacious enough to under- 
stand that African slavery, existing as it did in the United 
States in opposition to the almost universal public senti- 
ment of the civilized world, could only be expected to be 
maintained under the protection of the guarantees just 
referred to ; and he must have always understood that 
whenever slavery should become decidedly aggressive in its 
character, and should attempt to extend itself by unconsti- 
tutional means, this would be almost certain to lead to its 
speedy overthrow. He did not believe that slavery could 
be legitimately carried to the territorial domain of the 
Government outside the States wherein it was already 
established, and he fully concurred with Mr. Clay, Mr. 
Webster, and others that Congress, having exclusive legis- 
lative jurisdiction within the District of Columbia, it was* 
competent for that body to discontinue it there whenever 
it should be judged expedient to do so. While the fugi- 
tive slave law should continue to exist he was in favor of 
enforcing its provisions even within the limits of the free 
Stales themselves, and he is not know : to have made any 
strenuous effort to procure its repeal hi truth, Mr. Lin- 
coln was little more than a Whig of he Clay and Webster 
stamp, and warmly supported Mr. Clay in all his attempts 
to reach the Presidential office. When he ran against 
Mr. Douglas for the United States Senate, only a short 
time before he became a candidate for the Presidency, it 
is well known that Mr. Buchanan, the leader and repre- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 135 

sentative of the Democracy of that period, openly sympa- 
thized with him in that contest, and urged various gen- 
tlemen of some ability as speakers to visit the State of 
Illinois and aid in securing the election of Mr. Lincoln to 
the Senate of the United States in preference to Mr. Doug- 
las. I was myself positively assured by Colonel Carpenter, 
a gentleman then very favorably known as a stump- 
speaker in the West, that he had canvassed Illinois against 
Mr. Douglas at the earnest request of Mr. Buchanan, and 
upon a positive promise of the Commissionership to China 
if he would perform this duty — a post, however, which 
was not, in the sequel, bestowed upon him, and of the 
failure to confer which Mr. Carpenter most vehemently 
complained. John Slidell, well known in Louisiana for 
many years as a corrupt tamperer with popular elections 
in the interests of the Democracy, openly confessed to me, 
in the city of Memphis, on his return from Illinois, where 
he had been exerting himself for the defeat of Mr. Doug- 
las' Senatorial aspirations, in presence of from Mty to one 
hundred respectable citizens, that he had used money 
freely in Illinois for the overthrow of Douglas, avowing 
at the same time his anxiety to see Lincoln elected over 
him. So that it is quite evident that at this time even 
Mr. Lincoln's avowed political foes entertained great per- 
sonal respect for him, and regarded his presence in the 
Senate of the United States as altogether desirable. It is 
well known, both to myself and others in Mr. Douglas' 
confidence, that he always entertained a very high opinion 
of Mr. Lincoln's abilities and character; and, I am credi- 
bly informed by persons of the highest standing, that an 
hour or two after the delivery of President Lincoln's 
inaugural address Mr. Douglas approached him and 
declared his warm approval of all that he had uttered on 
that occasion. 

Let it be boi o in mind that the intriguing politicians 



136 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

of the secession stamp had labored with great assiduity in 
the Charleston Convention to defeat Mr. Douglas, because 
of his firm adherence to the ancient Democratic platform ; 
that they had urged the adoption of a resolution, as part 
of that platform, providing for the positive intervention of 
Congress in the vacant Territories of the Union in favor 
of slavery ; that this resolution was afterward adopted in 
Baltimore ; that in connection with these proceedings the 
Presidential ticket, upon which were inscribed the names 
of Breckinridge and Lane, was put in the field ; that it 
was openly avowed by Mr. Yancey and others of the 
secession stamp at this very time that they had little ex- 
pectation of electing the ticket they had formed, but 
hoped to defeat Douglas by the means they were using 
for that purpose ; and that Mr. Yancey, the great seces- 
sion leader of that period, had more than once declared, 
with his own characteristic frankness, that if Mr. Lincoln 
should be elected to the Presidency, even by a mere plu- 
rality of votes, he and his political confreres would imme- 
diately, upon that pretext, attempt to withdraw the 
Southern States from the Union. Consider, too, that Mr. 
Buchanan and his Cabinet had been all along openly 
abetting these movements ; that several of the members 
of his Cabinet had already become thoroughly compro- 
mised in various ways in the secession scheme ; that 
menaces of- armed resistance to the Government had been 
made in various forms, and that all were denounced in 
advance as dishonored men who would accept office of 
any grade or character at the hands of Mr. Lincoln. 

Now, let us examine for a moment the conduct of Mr. 
Lincoln — the extreme moderation and forbearance shown 
by him — bearing in mind all the while that the declara- 
tions which he solemnly made at this time were, for rea- 
sons already given, entitled to the fullest confidence. In 
his speech at Indianapolis, the first of many which he 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 137 

delivered on the way to Washington city, lie used this 
language : 

"What, then, is coercion? What, then, is invasion? Would the 
marching of an army into South Carolina without the consent of her 
people, and with hostile intent toward them, be invasion? I certainly 
think it would be invasion, and coercion also, if South Carolina were 
forced to submit. But if the United States should merely hold and 
retake her own forts and other property, and collect the duties on for- 
eign importations, or even withhold the mails from places where they 
were habitually violated, would any one or all these things be invasion 
or coercion?" 

Again he said, at Pittsburg : 

i; I repeat now, there is no crisis except such a one as may be gotten 
up at any time by designing politicians. My advice to them, under the 
circumstances, is, to ' keep cool.' If the great American people keep 
their temper on both sides of the line the trouble will come to an end, 
and the question which now distracts the country be settled, just as 
surely as all other difficulties of a like character which have originated 
in this Government have been adjusted. Let the people on both sides 
keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds have cleared away 
in due time so will this great nation continue to prosper as heretofore." 

How wise and considerate are all these suggestions, and 
how impressively applicable to certain over-excited dis- 
tricts of our country at the present time ! Would that 
the fierce zealots who are raging now so wildly in one or 
two vicinages in the far Southwest would act the part 
then so impressively recommended ! Oh ! how I should 
rejoice to see our countrymen everywhere exercising that 
coolness and self-possession, never forgetting for a moment 
that this is a land of government and law, and that the 
sacred and unavoidable duty of those invested with 
authority is to maintain the principles of law and order 
at all hazards ; for without this we are indeed all com- 
pletely wrecked. 

In Philadelphia, at Independence Hall, Mr. Lincoln 
concluded a modest and dignified harangue thus nobly : 

11 Now, in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there need be no 



138 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

bloodshed or war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of 
such a course ; and I may say, and in advance, that there will be no 
bloodshed, unless it be forced upon the Government, and then it wil* 
be in self-defense." 

What could Washington himself have said more patri- 
otic and pacific had he been in such a situation as that at 
this moment occupied by Mr. Lincoln? 

But in his inaugural address he ^ave still fuller assur- 
ances to the whole country as to the course intended to be 
pursued by him. In the opening portion thereof he 
said : 

iw Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern 
States that, b} r the accession of a Republican Administration, their pro- 
perty and their peace and personal security will be endangered. There 
has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed? 
the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed, and 
been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published 
speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of 
those speeches when I declare that 'I have no purpose, directly or indi- 
rectly, to interfere with slavery in the States where it exists. I believe 
I have no lawful right to do so, and [ have no intention to do so. 
Those who nominated me and elected me did so with this and many 
similar declarations, and I had never recanted them. Moreover, they 
placed in the platform, for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves 
and to me, the emphatic resolution which I now read : 

" ' Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the 
States, and especially the right of each to order and control its own do- 
mestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essen. 
tial to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of 
our political fabric depend ; and we denounce the lawless invasion by 
armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what 
pretext, as the greatest of crimes.' " 

Then, after adding, that " all the protection which, 
consistently with the Constitution and laws," could " be 
given, would be cheerfully given to all the States, when 
lawfully demanded, for whatever cause, as cheerfully to 
one section as to another," he referred to the clause in the 
Federal Constitution relating to the returning of " fugi- 
tives from service," and said : 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 139 

" It is scarcely questioned that, this provision was intended by those 
who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves, and the 
intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear their 
support to the whole Constitution, to this as well as any other. To 
the proposition, then, that slaves 'shall be delivered up ' their oaths are 
unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could 
they not, with nearly equal unanimity, frame and pass a law by 
means of which they could keep good that unanimous oath?" 

He presently proceeds to say : 

" I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservation, and with 
no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical 
rules ; and while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Con- 
gress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer 
for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by 
all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, 
trusting to find impunity in having them held unconstitutional." 

How could any reasonable Southern man have demanded 
any stronger assurances than these ? They are positively 
stronger and more comprehensive than any previous Presi- 
dent had found it necessary to give, and Mr. Lincoln's 
character, was, after all, really the best guarantee that they 
could possibly have possessed. 

Referring to his duty to maintain the Government he 
says : 

"I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as a declared 
purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain 
itself. In doing this there need be no bloodshed or violence, and there 
shall be none unless it is torced upon the national authority." 

He closes his address in these noble words : 

"My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well upon this 
who'e subject ; nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. 

''If there be an object to hurry any of you in hot haste to a step 
which you would 1 ever take deliberately, that objeet will be frustrated 
by taking time ; but no good object can be frustrated by it. 

** Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution 
unimpaired, and on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing 
under it, while the new Administration will have no immediate power, 
if it would, to change either. 

kt If it were admitted that you, who are dissatisfied, hold the right side 



140 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

in the dispute* there is still no single reason for precipitate action. In- 
telligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who 
has never yet forsaken the favored land are still competent to adjust 
in the best way all our difficulties. 

" In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, 
is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail 
you. 

' " You can have no conflict without making yourselves the aggressors. 
You eat* have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, 
while I shall have the most solemn one to ; preserve, protect, and de- 
fend' it. 

il I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must 
not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break 
the bonds of affection. 

"The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field 
and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this 
broad land will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, 
as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." 

It would indeed seem that this memorable address 
should have had a most soothing and reassuring influence 
upon the minds and hearts even of those who stood 
already committed to extreme measures, and who had 
made secret preparations for the daring and mad experi- 
ment which was soon to be essayed. Mr. Calhoun had 
demanded a new constitutional guarantee in behalf "of 
slavery before California was admitted into the Union as a 
sine qua non to the continuance of the Union, and his hot- 
headed disciples of 1860 made the same demand, and upon 
its not being yielded, they immediately commenced war 
by ordering that the fort at Charleston should be fired 
upon. The day will surely come when this will be looked 
upon universally as the most unjustifiable and unwise pro- 
ceeding which has ever marked the history of a civilized 
and Christian people. This I have for one always thought 
and shall never cease to think, though circumstances 
beyond my control afterward drew me and other known 
friends of the Union into a most deplorable attitude, for 
the assumption of which, even for a single instant of time, 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 141 

I shall never entirely forgive myself, albeit a magnani- 
mous Government has already pardoned the offense. 

In reference to the unfortunate result of the efforts in 
Congress in the spring of 1861 to obviate existing dangers 
dl venture to offer one or two remarks here. 

Mr. Crittenden's well-known resolutions of compromise 
could, doubtless, have been obtained, but for the fact that 
certain Southern Senators, five in number, (evidently by 
preconcert,) when the motion to substitute the two reso- 
lutions of Mr. Clarke in lieu of them was voted on, refused 
to vote at all; when, had they voted, as they ought to 
have done, Mr. Clarke's resolutions would have been 
defeated by a vote of 28 to 29, and Mr. Crittenden's must 
have been afterward adopted. When the last test vote 
upon Mr. Clarke's substitute was taken in the Senate just 
before the session terminated, Crittenden's resolutions of 
compromise were defeated by a vote of 20 to 19, a number 
of Southern Senators having meanwhile, with equal want 
of true wisdom and practical fidelity to the South, resigned 
their seats in Congress and returned to their own homes 
to aid in consummating the work of secession, then in ac- 
tive progress. It is due to Mr. Seward to state that, 
though before that perilous moment opposed to all com- 
promise, he now introduced a proposition in the Senatorial 
committee of thirteen which, had it been accepted in 
behalf of the South, and incorporated into the Federal 
Constitution, would certainly have given permanent 
security to the slaveholding region, though it would just 
as certainly have perpetuated the evil of slavery. It was 
in these words : " No amendment shall be made to the 
Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress any 
power to abolish or interfere in any State with the domes- 
tic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to 
service or labor by the laws of said State." To this pro- 
position, as is now well known, Mr. Davis, of Mississippi, 



142 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

and Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, refused their assent in com 
mittee, these gentlemen having other fish to fry in the 
neighborhood of Montgomery, Alabama ! 

I have been compelled to give these statements of fact 
to most persons, doubtless, quite well known heretofore, 
in order to open the way for the presentation hereafter of 
some curious reminiscences, which might not otherwise be 
so fully appreciated. 



9 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 143 

REMINISCENCE No. XV. 

MR. DAVIS — MR. SEDDON MR. BENJAMIN. 

Thcmistocles, when on a certain occasion a teacher of 
the art of memory tendered his" services to him as an in- 
structor, is reported to have said that he should greatly 
prefer becoming poss essed in some way of the means of 
forgetting all things of a disagreeable nature, and is said 
somewhat proudly to have rejected the proffered aid. 
Cicero professes to admire much the greatness of mind 
displayed by the illustrious Athenian in this instance, 
but does" not hesitate to say for himself : u Non sum qui 
oblivionis artem quam memories mallem" Without com- 
mitting myself absolutely on this delicate point, and re- 
cognizing in the fullest manner the correctness of Tully's 
definition of memory when he says of it : "Memoria est 
per quam animus repetit ilia quefuerunt — thesaurus re rum 
inventarum" yet must I say that I should very gladly for- 
get forever all that was so sad and humiliating in the 
insane and ruinous eareer of what was ten years ago 
known as the Government of the Confederate States of 
America. And yet are there one or two facts in addition 
to those already very hastily alluded to which I do not 
feel at liberty to exclude altogether from the observation 
of such as may be curious in reference to the trying scenes 
through which a deceived and misguided people had so 
painfully to pass. I shall be as concise as possible in 
dealing with these matters, and I shall state nothing the 
proof of which is not easy to be adduced. 

When Mr. Benjamin was compelled to forego reappoint- 
ment to the Secretaryship of War by the continual com- 
plaints made in Congress and elsewhere of his gross offi- 



144 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

cial misconduct, Mr' Davis 'was persuaded to appoint to 
the vacant place a gentleman of rare qualifications and of 
extraordinary moral worth — Mr. Randolph, of Virginia, 
a grandson of Thomas Jefferson. During this gentle- 
man's occupancy of the Department of War his conduct 
was eminently exemplary, his high ability was constantly 
displayed in the performance of his arduous official du- 
ties, his industry was niost untiring, and he gave the 
most indisputable evidence, every day and hour, of his 
remarkable virtues and of his disinterested devotion to 
the cause which he had espoused. He was a man, 
though, of singular independence of spirit, and though 
sufficiently deferential toward those to whom he was offi- 
cially responsible, yet he possessed far too elevated a feel- 
ing of self-respect and too much regard for his own well- 
established fame to become the mere slave of a vain and 
arrogant Chief Magistrate. So, in a short time, the pub- 
lic learned with regret that General Randolph had re- 
signed and gone into private life, and that Mr. James A. 
Scddon, also a native of Virginia, had shown himself so 
indecently regardless of the honor of the "Ancient Do- 
minion" as to allow himself to be foisted into a place 
from which his noble predecessor had been ousted by 
such cruel ill-treatment. 

From a man who had been willingly inducted into of- 
fice in a manner so discreditable of course not much was 
to be expected, either of manly and efficient service, or 
of official purity and disinterestedness. The career of 
Mr. Seddon, as Secretary of War, will long be remem- 
bered by all who ever entered the War Department at 
Richmond while he sat enthroned therein. It may be 
safely asserted that he did not possess a single one of the 
qualities needed for a creditable and useful performance 
of the duties now devolved on him. He was never able 
to learn even the ordinary routine of official business, 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 145 

and often scornfully declined attending to matters of the 
most urgent importance, lie was as arrogant and in- 
sulting to those who approached him in his official sanc- 
tum as he was notoriously servile and fawning to his own 
executive chief. He evinced, from his very entrance into 
office, an utter disregard of all constitutional obligations, 
and in the exercise of the authority committed to him 
he proved himself to be the most heartless and ruffianly 
tyrant whom I have ever yet seen in the possession of 
official power. Though he had always been an ardent 
State-rights man in profession, it soon became evident 
that he had never sincerely cherished the smallest regard 
for the principles embodied in the well-known State- 
rights creed, and he habitually trampled under foot, and 
without the least appearance of a blush upon his livid and 
atrabilious visage, all the anciently recognized muni- 
ments of State sovereignty. I shall not now go into a 
minute specification of this man's offenses. It is perhaps 
sufficient to state that he enforced with the most unfeel- 
ing rigor all the most stringent and oppressive enact- 
ments of the Confederate Congress in connection with 
forcible impressment and conscription ; that in many 
known instances he went far beyond the scope of these 
enactments, while in others he criminally relaxed the 
law in order to accommodate special friends or the mem- 
bers of his own family connection ; that he was an earn- 
est advocate for the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, 
and that when this writ was suspended in a manner com- 
pletely to uproot everything like civic jurisdiction in 
every nook and corner of the unhappy South, he eagerly 
took advantage of the condition of things to fill the 
prison-houses everywhere with as good citizens as any 
the South contained, and to compel individuals to do 
military duty, in violation of the most solemn govern- 
mental compacts. This was especially true in regard to 
10r 



146 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

the six or seven thousand volunteers from the State of 
Maryland, who, after enlisting, without persuasion from 
any quarter, in the Confederate service for a limited and 
specified period, after the expiration of this period were 
rudely seized upon by the myrmidons of the War De- 
partment . with a view to compelling them to re-enlist, 
under the penalty, should they refuse to do so, of being 
tried and punished as for desertion. It is even true, 
within my own knowledge, that when that firm and up- 
right judicial magistrate, Judge Haliburton, undertook 
in certain cases to grant writs of habeas corpus in behalf 
of some of those persecuted Marylanders, and manifested 
a disposition to do them justice as far, at least, as was in 
his power, the rampant tyrant at the War office evinced 
an open disregard even of the authority of the Confed- 
erate district judge ; and that officer was even informed, 
in the columns of the recognized Government organ, (the 
Sentinel,) which doubtless spoke by the card$ that the Sec- 
retary of War would pay no earthly regard to the most 
deliberate adjudications of the court in which he pre- 
sided. And yet Mr. Davis retained Mr. Seddon in office, 
amid continual indications of popular indignation and 
disgust, from month to month, and from year to year ; 
nor would he have removed him at all but for my formal 
exposition of the fact on the last day of my appearance 
in Congress, (which fact stood verified by his own official 
records,) that he had recently caused himself to be paid, 
by the hands of his own official subordinate, $40 per 
bushel for his whole crop of wheat for the year 1864, 
while he was, by the instrumentality of forcible impress- 
ment, compelling the farmers of North Carolina, Geor- 
gia, and other States to yield up their wheat to the Gov- 
ernment officials at the very inadequate price of from $7 
to $9 per bushel, in Confederate paper. My exposition 
was made in Congress one morning, and the next morn- 



CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 147 

ing Mr. Sedclon resigned ; but all the facts then adverted 
to by me had been well known to a special committee of 
the House for several months, whose decided action on 
the subject I found it impossible to obtain, such was the 
slavish submissiveness of the hour, and so terrific had 
Mr. Davis and his Pretorian bands become. 

As chairman of a special committee of the Confederate 
Congress, organized at my own instance, for inquiring 
into cases of alleged illegal imprisonment, I obtained 
from the superintendent of the prison-house in Richmond 
a grim and shocking catalogue of the persons then con- 
fined there, amounting to the number of several hun- 
dred, all of whom stood charged with only suspected in- 
fidelity to the Confederate cause, and these had been ar- 
rested, not on oath of any kind. Just as I was about to 
take proper steps to have these poor creatures discharged, 
Mr. Davis' demand for a renewed habeas corpus suspen- 
sion was yielded to, and the door of hope forever closed 
upon these victims of despotism, most of whom died in 
confinement. This case of suffering was really almost 
equal to that of the famous Black Hole of Calcutta I 

It is a notorious and undeniable fact that Mr. Seddon, 
as the incumbent of the War Department, did actually 
interpose in a manner most rude and unfeeling to pre- 
vent the Confederate lines from being passed by ladies of 
the highest respectability, desirous only of carrying their 
infant children to school in Maryland and other States, 
where the ordinary means of education yet survived, hop- 
ing in this way to save them from a portion of the worst 
horrors of the unhappy war then in progress. This I assert 
upon my own personal knowledge, and am prepared to 
give names and dates when called on for that purpose. 

Mr. Seddon had been at one time a member of the 
Federal Congress. There he had signalized himself as a 
furious State-rights man. In the celebrated Peace Con- 



148 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

ference of 1861 he distinguished himself by going beyond 
all others in demanding additional guarantees for the 
protection of the slave-holding interest. Just before he 
received the appointment of Secretary of War he had 
been very badly beaten in the Petersburg Congressional 
district by a gentleman of more conservative views. 

This person I had accidentally met on Pennsylvania 
avenue, in Washington, in the summer of 1850. He had 
the presumption to tell me that he intended to go to Mis- 
sissippi in order to report to my constituents there my 
gross misrepresentation of them in Congress in connection 
with the compromise measures of that period. I imme- 
diately told him that I would meet him upon the questions 
involved in these measures before his own constituents, in 
Richmond, but he did not deem it prudent to take up 
my challenge. 

Such are some of the beauties of secession ; and such 
was the arbitrary and tyrannical conduct of those who 
had attempted to break up the Federal Union in order 
to avoid the imaginary danger of consolidation ! 

To show the spirit of imperial domination then raging 
in Richmond I will relate a curious anecdote, for the 
truth of which I personally vouch. One morning, very 
early in the day, I was walking through the Capitol 
grounds in Richmond, when I met a respectable officer in 
the employment of the Confederate Government, who at 
once inquired of me whether Mr. Davis ever got 
drunk. I told him I thought not, and inquired 
his reason for propounding this question ; to which 
he responded as follows: "Mr. Davis, Mr. Mal- 
lory, and others had visited Drewry's Bluff on yesterday. 
When the company reached Rocketts, on their return, 
Mr. Davis, not finding his carriage there to meet him, as 
he had expected, determined to go home on foot. His 
lady was accompanying him. They had to pass the Lib- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 149 

by* Prison in their route. When they reached this well- 
known spot, where it would seem that Mr. Davis had 
never been before, it being twilight, the sentinel on duty 
before the prison door would not have been able at once 
to distinguish the Confederate chief even if he had been 
previously familiar with his august person. But in 
point of fact he did not know him at all, never having 
seen him face to face in his life. He challenged the new- 
comers accordingly, as was to have been expected. Upon 
this Mr. Davis announced that he was Jefferson 
Davis, President of the Confederate States of Ameri- 
ca. Says the sentinel : 'I wish I knew this to be 
true, but really I do not know Mr. Davis, and I can not 
allow you to pass ;' when Mr. Davis, drawing his sword- 
cane, sprang toward the sentinel with fierce and angry 
menaces upon his lips. The sentinel pointed his piece 
directly toward his person, and would have shot him, 
then and there, but for the prompt and fearless interposi- 
tion of Mrs. Davis, who, assuring the honest soldier upon 
her honor that this was Jefferson Davis, and her hus- 
band ; the sentinel, faltering under her influence, agreed 
to take the responsibility of letting Davis and his lady 
pass. And so they did ; but so soon as Mr. Davis got to 
his home he sent for General Winder, informed him of 
the serious indignity which had been done him by one 
of his subordinates, and ordered his immediate arrest, 
with a view to his condign punishment. Winder respect- 
fully remonstrated against this course of proceeding. 
Davis got into a towering passion, and threatened to re- 
move Winder if he did not obey the order which had 
been given him immediately. Upon this the young man 
was arrested, and is now in custody." 

1 asked the gentleman who gave me this information 
if either of the editors in Richmond knew of the affair. 
He replied that he had given a full account of the par- 



150 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

ticulars recited to a reporter for the Examiner. Fearing 
the effect of such a publication as was now likely to be 
made, I besought my young friend not to mention the 
matter again, and proceeded at once to the office of the 
Examiner, where I persuaded its editor not to make any 
publication in his paper of an occurrence so ridiculous 
and disgusting, and thus succeeded in getting it for the 
time suppressed. 

I have been frequently asked whether Mr. Davis made 
any money by the war in which he and his associates had 
succeeded in involving the cotton States, and to this 
question I have never been able to respond satisfactorily. 
I know that I always expected him and Mr. Benjamin to 
get rich by the war, and I often ventured to predict that 
they would be found whenever the Confederate cause 
caved in to have provided largely for themselves in 
Liverpool, whither the Confederate' Government had 
sent considerable amounts of cotton. Mr. Benjamin's 
sudden flight to England immediately on his decamping 
from Richmond was to my mind always quite a suspi- 
cious circumstance, knowing well jls I did that devoted 
fondness for money which he had evinced even from bis 
earjiest boyhood.^ .Mr, Davis' subsequent movement in 
the same direction was a sfrong confirmatory, fact.'- ■» The 
public is at least entitled to a fuller explanation on this 
subject than it has yet received; and those who advanced 
their all in gold and silver to the Confederate officials, 
when that Government was in its last agony — receiving 
therefor only drafts on Liverpool, never yet met — are 
fairly entitled to a juster consideration at the hands of 
Mr. Davis and his associates than they have yet received. 
I know a number of instances of this kind, over which 
my heart has bled, and for the honor of human nature 
it is to be hoped that something will yet be done to al- 
leviate such unmerited sufferings. There is one consider- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 151 

able fund about which I personally know something, and 
in reference to which many persons would now like 
much to know more than I am prepared to tell them. 
Some two hundred thousand dollars in gold, or more, 
were placed in the hands of Mr. Jacob Thompson for cer- 
tain war purposes, which he took with him to Canada, 
and deposited in the bank of Mr. Porterfield, (now a 
Nashville neighbor of mine of the greatest respectability.) 
Mr. Porterfield told me in Montreal, in the summer of 
1865, that Thompson had, a few days before my arrival 
there, drawn out all his money and taken it with him to 
England. The war was then over, for Lee and Joe 
Johnston had both surrendered. Now, what did Mr. 
Thompson do with this large sum? Did he and Mr. 
Davis divide it between them ? Did_the ^immortal Ben- 
jamin get his share, or has the whole amount been subse- 
quently distributed in charity among the thousands and 
hundreds of thousands of the unhappy people of the 
South ruined by following the fortunes of their once 
loved and honored leader, and testing with him the true 
value of the once venerated State-rights-secession-Demo- 
cratic creed ? 

I once witnessed a curious scene in connection with the 
conscription law of the Confederate Government. A 
young gentleman of good family, who belonged to a well- 
known Quaker connection in the county of Maury, and 
in the State of Tennessee, had been run down by one of 
the official bloodhounds employed by the Davis despotism 
to collect conscripts. This young man was about eigh- 
teen or nineteen years of age ; he was blooming, hand- 
some, genteel in his manners, and well-dressed. When 
brought into camp he at once stated that he was of 
Quaker origin and creed ; that he had been brought up 
to believe that all fighting was wrong, andthat to shed 
blood upon the field of battle was the greatest crime of 



152 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

which human nature could possibly be guilty. He was 
singularly intelligent, and sustained, his non-combative at- 
titude with great ingenuity and with the aid of most ap- 
posite citations from Scripture. General Manney, the 
commander holding this interesting young man in 
charge, came to me at Chattanooga, and told me how 
much he was perplexed and agonized with this case, and 
requested me to visit the young prisoner in camp and 
talk to him. So indeed I did. My conversation with 
him was a long and public one. I could not overcome 
his objections to enlisting, and to the last he refused to 
bear arms in the fratricidal war then spins; on# General 
Manney did not shoot him, as the conscript law directed ; 
his humanity forbade this. The young man underwent 
great sufferings of every kind for some months, and the 
war at last ending he returned to the enjoyment of life, 
liberty, and the society of his family. I have seen him 
repeatedly in the last year or two. lie recently obtained 
a patent for some useful invention, and is now a prosper- 
ous and happy citizen. 

Will our hot-blooded and mercurial Southern people 
ever be persuaded to try another secession experiment, or 
will they hereafter remain firmly and immovably at- 
tached to the flag of their fathers? Will they not resist 
the first efforts of the over-zealous devotees of party to 
draw them into an attitude antagonistical to the Con- 
stitution and laws of their country ? 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 153 



REMINISCENCE No. XVI. 

MR. LINCOLN — MR. DAVIS— GENERAL JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON- 
GENERAL SHERMAN. 

The most censurable act ever performed by Mr. Davis 
as the chosen chief of the Confederate Government has 
been already alluded to, but not expatiated on. President 
Lincoln, with that true humanity of spirit and genuine 
magnanimity which belong to all great and elevated char- 
acters, had traveled from Washington to the mouth of the 
blames river to tender just and generous terms of peace to 
his insurgent fellow-citizens. These terms had been dis- 
tinctly made known to the Commissioners whom Mr. Da- 
vis had been compelled by stress of circumstances to send 
to him for consultation. The Commissioners, bound up 
by prohibitory instructions to the contrary, had been able 
to make no peace. To return without having attained 
the object which at least tw^o of these gentlemen had so 
much desired to effect had doubtless been to them a source 
of much unhappiness and chagrin. But yet undoubtedly 
some progress had been made, for it had been ascertained 
that the most mild and liberal terms would be accorded 
to the people of the Confederate States ; indeed, almost 
any terms consistent with the maintenance of the Union. 
They might well have hoped, when on their way back to 
Richmond, Mr. Davis, in whom most unfortunately the 
whole pow r er to treat for peace had been centered, would 
gladly embrace the opportunity of stopping the effusion 
of blood and restoring the blessings of concord and broth- 
erly amity. If they expected this they w^ere most pain- 
fully disappointed, for so soon as Mr. Davis heard what 
had been the kind and conciliatory language of Mr. Lin- 



154 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

coin, he at once said that it must not be known either to 
Congress or the people of the insurgent States that a just 
and honorable peace had been found to be a practica- 
ble thing, but the truth must be concealed from those so 
well entitled to know it, and a vile falsehood most cruelly 
promulgated. So a meeting was convoked for that very 
night at the African Church, in Richmond, where he and 
Mr. Benjamin both attended and made known to those 
assembled the fact that Mr. Lincoln had only agreed to 
accept their absolute submission, and would give no guar- 
antee whatever of his future good treatment of those who 
had been enlisted in rebellion. A viler or more mischiev- 
ous fraud was never perpetrated, but the success of the 
movement was complete, those assembled at the African 
Church relying on the solemn but utterly false representa- 
tions of Mr. Davis and his Secretary of State, and suppos- 
ing that the continuance of the war was now inevitable, 
unless they were prepared to submit to permanent dishonor 
and never-ending servitude. So a deluded and betrayed 
people resolved to renew the struggle for independence 
with fresh energy and determination ! 

There is nothing else so disgraceful as this known 
in history, and coming generations will be sure to credit 
these monsters of iniquity with all the precious lives de- 
stroyed, and all the devastation afterward committed in 
the further progress of the war. 

Mr. Davis having adroitly managed to attract the at- 
tention of Mr. Lincoln and his Secretary to himself as the 
only possible medium of pacification, and having awak- 
ened in Mr. Lincoln's mind some hope of a speedy termi- 
nation of the war, the mission which I had undertaken 
was completely baffled. 

Generous men will excuse'my here briefly stating that 
when, after delivering a four-hours' speech in the Confed- 
erate Congress, in which I took occasion solemnly to warn 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 155 

my unfortunate countrymen of the danger then menacing 
them, and of which so many of them seemed to he wholly 
unconscious, and fortifying my prophetic foreshado wings 
of the early fall of Richmond by the solemn citation of 
that well-known couplet from Campbell : 

*' The sunset of life lends a mystical lore, 
And coming events cast their shadows before." 

I left that doomed city, and in a few days addressed a 
letter to Mr. Speaker Bocock, in which the following lan- 
guage occurred : 

" Sir : In an hour or two, if some unseen impediment does not arise 
to defeat the execution of my present design, I shall cross the majestic 
river upon the banks of which have reposed for many generations the 
ashes of my forefathers, and in all probability visit the city of Washing- 
ton, for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not it is practicable to 
obtain for the people of the Confederate States an early and an honor- 
able peace, after the most bloody and exhausting struggle of arms, and 
in all respects the most deplorable one, which has yet found record 
upon the page of history. No human being save myself is responsible 
for this movement, nor should I have undertaken it but for the well- 
known fact that the two Executive departments, at Washington and 
Richmond, have relations with each other which render it almost im- 
possible that regular diplomatic intercourse should occur between 
them, and the additional fact that the two houses of the Confederate 
Congress seem to be altogether averse to the doing of anything where- 
by a cessation of hostilities and the. restoration of peace and amity may 
be secured between those who, in my deliberate judgment, should 
never have allowed-themselves to be drawn into a war so unnatural 
and fratricidal in its character, so destructive of the best interests of 
eivilization and Christianity, and which, should it continue to be prose- 
cuted for four yenvs more, must inevitably, from the operation of war 
itself, result in the establishment of two of the mostgrinding despotisms 
the world has yet knowo. Should I succeed in my present undertak- 
ing, my country and the cause of freedom will be materially benefited. 
Should I fail, discredit, ridicule, and even contempt will be most surely 
visited upon me in full measure ; even many sensible and good men 
will recognize me as a mere visionary projector ; while the envious, the 
illiberal, the malevolent, the ignoble time-servers of the period, the slav- 
ish idolaters of power, will not scruple to denounce me as a traitor to 
what is known as the Confederate Government. For all this lam pre- 
pared, as 1 likewise am prepared to undergo trial for alleged treason 



150 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

to the Government of the United States, should those now occupying 
the seats of authority in Washington city deem this to be the fitting 
treatment of a voluntary embassador of peace. I hope that it will not 
appear either vainglorious or egotistical in me to declare further that 
should it be my fate to die upon the scaffold in consequence of my un- 
dertaking a mission sanctioned by some of the wisest and most vir_ 
tuous men now upholding the Confederate cause, I feel, notwithstand- 
ing — though my sufferings will awaken most probably but little of 
commiserative sympathy in any quarter — that in passing from the stage 
of mortal existence, I shall be able sincerely to exclaim in the language 
of classic poesy : 

* * * ' Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori." " 

The public has been long apprised that my Washington 
city trip was rudely intercepted ; that I was held in mili- 
tary custody for several days by order of Mr. Davis ; that 
I was afterward discharged on habeas corpus ; that I yet- 
persevered in my original determination to obtain peace 
could it be obtained on honorable terms ; that with a view 
to this end, in cold and inclement weather, and amid snow 
and ice, I penetrated to the military headquarters of Gen- 
eral Devin, of the Federal army, where I was courteously 
entertained and allowed to correspond with the Washing- 
oii authorities ; that failing in my efforts to obtain a 
declaration of the terms of peace which I was seeking, I 
declined giving them the names of my advisers and con- 
sociates, and submitted voluntarily to imprisonment in 
New York, previous to my setting sail for the European 
continent ; that while in New York I again opened cor- 
respondence with the Government with a view to pacifi- 
cation, but with equal want of success, and that for reasons 
already stated, I then embarked for Liverpool. 

From on board the steamship in which I sailed, I 
wrote a long and earnest letter to Mr. Lincoln, warning 
him of the danger which lay in his relying too confidently 
upon securing peace through the medium of Mr. Davis' 
stringently-instructed peace commissioners to the neigh- 
borhood of Norfolk, and urging him to send forth his own 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 157 

proclamation to the Southern people, in which should be 
embodied the terms of pacification, and, among other 
things, I said this to him : 

U I write to you from mid-ocean, while the stormy billows of the sur- 
rounding sea are every moment reminding me of that fearful scene of 
commotion and turmoil which I have left behind me, in a land once so 
peaceful and happy, but now marked so wofully with ravage and the 
copious shedding of fraternal blood in civil strife. Sir, allow me to say, 
in all earnestness and sincerity, that in my opinion the ancient classic 
poets have not described Neptune himself as having more power as the 
grand composer of the waves of the vexed and angry ocean than you 
now possess, in your high official character, for calming the troubles 
which at present so deplorably convulse the enlightened and patriotic 
freemen who inhabit our own native America. You hold the trident 
of pacification in your hands. May that trident be wielded with true 
benevolence and wisdom, and in the genuine AVashington spirit!" 

Seven weeks only was I absent from New York when I 
returned thither, after having rapidly traversed England, 
France, Switzerland, and Italy. The first news which I 
received on entering the port of 'New York was that of 
the surrender of the valiant, upright, and noble-minded 
Lee, an event which I had so long seen to be inevitable. 
Davis, Benjamin, and other well-known official person- 
ages, I soon learned, had made their escape from the 
Virginia capital, and were making tracks God only knew 
whitherward. Davis and his dapper little attache tarried 
just long enough to make themselves ridiculous, by the 
formal announcement that the war would be yet vigor 
ously prosecuted, even after Lee s own heroic heart had 
been forced to despair of the Confederate cause. 

" Hope springs eternal in tin- human breast; 
Man never is, but always to be blest." 

Benjamin flies precipitately toward the sea, and passes 
rapidly across the Atlantic, in the direction of Liverpool, 
to look after the Confederate cotton sales there going on, 
and soon gets ready in London to publish rather a super- 
fluous legal work entitled "Benjamin on Sales," soon him- 



158 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

self as he might fondly anticipate to be enveloped in the 
official wig and gown of Queen's counsel. Davis, like 
Charles V, Charles II of England, and several other illus- 
trious worthies of ancient and modern times, seeks pro- 
tection from habiliments of a similar cut, but alas ! in vain. 
lie is intercepted on his way to Texas, where he had 
hoped to find himself soon at the head of a large and val- 
iant army, to be composed in part of 100,000 French sol- 
diers fresh from the spoliation of Mexico. Had he passed 
the Father of Waters in safety, what chance was there of 
his bringing back with him an armed force large enough 
to have reconquered the Southern States lost by the un- 
trained and luckless valor of Lee and Joe Johnston ? Had 
such a reconquest been consummated, what probability 
was there that the warm-hearted Southern people would, 
in a burst of convulsive gratitude, have greeted him with 
the cheering exclamation, " Vive VEmpereur?" 

That he had some such vain fancy as this is certain. Gen- 
eral Toombs told me, in fact, on my reaching Richmond, 
in the winter of 1861, that the ambitious Confederate 
President had already made out his list of field-marshals, 
and that, in order to defeat the imperial aspirations of his 
lordly civil chief, he had himself thought it most prudent 
to resign the Department of State, which he had for some 
time held, hoping that by taking a position in the army 
he might be able to give important aid in baffling the Na- 
poleonic aspirations of this first champion of American 
Ca?sarism, who, I sincerely hope and believe, will be the 
last. 

Surely no one can now doubt that secession, or the 
breaking up of the States which composed this Union into 
separate sectional organizations must inevitably result in 
perpetual border wars; that border wars would necessitate 
the organization of large standing armies in each of the 
separate nationalities ; whence an imperial despotism 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 159 

would arise almost immediately. So that, in fact, the 
shortest and, perhaps, the only certain road to Cresarism 
in this country passes along by the grim and turreted 
castle of Democratic-State-rights secessionism. 

General Joe Johnston had told me in the commence- 
ment of 1864, with that ready and decisive frankness for 
which he is so remarkable, and in response to a special in- 
quiry addressed to him by' me, that whenever General 
Sherman should pass to the sea-coast through Georgia, 
march through South Carolina and North Carolina to the 
neighborhood of Grant's army in Virginia, Richmond 
would be able to hold out no longer, and there would soon 
be an end of the Confederate straggle for independence. 
Mr. Davis kindly opened Georgia and South Carolina to 
him by removing Joe Johnston from the command of the 
Confederate army defending Atlanta, and sending it, un- 
der the command of Hood, through north Alabama, to 
Middle Tennessee. Upon this insane movement on the 
part of Mr. Davis being made known to the Confederate 
Congress, I did not fail to denounce the same in language 
of the most emphatic decrial, for doing which I was 
charged by Mr. Davis' still idolatrous admirers with be- 
ing both presumptuous and unjust. In General Grant's 
report of that campaign the following very striking lan- 
o'uasje is to be found : 

" General Sherman, immediately on the fall of Atlanta, put his 
armies in camp in and about the place, and made all preparations for 
refitting and supplying them for future service. The great length of 
road from Atlanta to Cumberland river, however, which had to be 
guarded, allowed the troops but little rest. During this time Jefferson 
Davis made a speech in Macon, Georgia, which was reported in the 
papers in the South, and soon became known to the whole country, dis- 
closing the plans of the enemy, thus enabling General Sherman fully 
to meet them. He exhibited the weakness of supposing that an army 
that had been beaten and fearfully decimated in a vain attempt at the 
defensive could successfully undertake the offensive against the army 
that had so often defeated it." 



160 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

The double surrender of Generel R. E. Lee and General 
Joseph E. Johnston left no doubt whatever that there 
would soon be a universal cessation of hostilities. All 
had now been done for the support of the Confederate 
cause that military skill, ardent and persevering valor, and 
a most self-sacrificing devotion to principle could do. The 
soldiers who filled the Confederate ranks had for the most 
part not at all participated in the movements which ulti- 
mately led to armed collision between the assailants and 
the supporters of the Federal Union. But few of the rank 
and file on either side had at any time embarked in sec- 
tional controversy and strife. They were nearly all true- 
hearted and brave American citizens, who loved peace and 
social brotherhood, and had become soldiers under what, 
on the one side and on the other, was felt to be a sacred 
sense of duty. Never had more valor been displayed than 
marked the bloody conflicts of those four fearful and san- 
guinary years which rolled away after the impolitic and. 
criminal firing upon Fort Sumter. The displays of hero- 
ism made on either side are part and portion of the " moral 
treasures of the country, and the whole country ;" and 
the day will assuredly come, though perhaps not quite so 
soon as all liberal-minded men are hoping and praying that 
it may, when a general oblivion of all that is painful in the 
past, and a disinterested appreciation of all that was no- 
bly and grandly done on either side, will make as all once 
more compatriots, friends, and brethren. 

The wise and magnanimous compact of surrender, signed 
upon the soil of the Old North State by General William 
T. Sherman and General Joseph E. Johnston, I have ever 
regarded as eminently creditable to the distinguished com- 
manders with whom this compact originated ; and though 
the envy of some, and the selfish illiberal ity of others, 
may for a time have succeeded in attaching some doubt 
as to the policy and propriety of this much-discussed mea- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 161 

sure, there are but few if any men of sound understanding 
now to be found anywhere who do not regard the terms 
of surrender originally agreed upon as entitling both Gen- 
eral Sherman and General Johnston to very great praise. 

The delicate and truly chivalrous demeanor of General 
Grant in employing his honored friend and comrade in 
arms, General Sherman, to conduct, from first to last, the 
reactionary proceeding directed by President Johnson to 
be carried on is worthy of all praise, and is one of those 
high-toned and heroic acts which most dignify and em- 
blazon the page of history. 

In reference to General Sherman and General Joe John- 
ston, I have a few words of just commendation to offer, 
the utterance of which, though it may not at all benefit 
either of these distinguished individuals, I feel to be due 
to my own long-cherished opinions and feelings. 

There are few men on the continent of a braver soul, of 
a more cultured mind, or of more urbane and o-entlemanlv 
manners than General Joseph E. Johnston. I have never 
yet heard his courage, his disinterestedness, or his abili- 
ties called in question ; and I sincerely hope that the 
day is not far distant, should war again arise in the land, 
when this meritorious soldier will be once more found bat- 
tling gloriously and successfully against some foreign foe 
side by side with such men as Sherman and other distin- 
guished defenders of the Union in the recent struggle of 
arms, under the immortal Stars and Stripes, beneath which 
he has so often in other days won undying renown. 

General Sherman I have long and intimately known. 
I first became acquainted with him in California nearly 
twenty years ago, where I had business dealings with him 
from time to time of a very important character. He was 
then a member of the great banking firm of Lucas, Turner 
& Company, which was perhaps the strongest and best 
regulated banking association then to be found on the 
11r 



162 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

Pacific coast. General Sherman's business habits at that 
time were such as commanded for him universal respect 
and confidence ; nor was there a banker in California who 
was more universally commended for his justice, his lib- 
erality, and his financial skill. He was remarkable for 
his public spirit, and manifested a deep interest in all that 
concerned the prosperity and welfare of his then recently 
adopted home. No man ever had more diligence, more 
activity, and more perseverance. Self-love has never, even 
for an instant, I am sure, predominated in his bosom over 
the feelings of generosity and manliness. His personal ap- 
pearance is most commanding ; in conversation he is frank, 
cordial, and obliging ; he has not a particle of hauteur or 
arrogance, and he has the manners of a high-bred, affable, 
and warm-hearted gentleman. His mind is quick, vigor- 
ous, and comprehensive ; and he talks with a graceful and 
impressive elegance upon all occasions and with all classes 
of our population. He has never been a zealous and acri- 
monious partisan in politics, and I think I have heard him 
say that he had never voted at a political election in his 
life. He is one of the most thoroughly domestic men I 
ever knew, and when not absorbed in his public duties he 
is prone, above most men I know, to seek the society of 
his family or that of his dear and trusted friends. 

Eo commander on either side during the late sanguinary 
and wasteful war was more active and energetic than 
General Sherman, and few men have in any age displayed 
more ability as a military commander, either in the plan- 
ning of grand schemes of operation or in carrying these 
schemes into effect. During the recent war he wrote and 
published several letters, which, at the time of their ap- 
pearance, gave more or less annoyance to some individuals 
or classes of individuals. But these letters were really 
very well adapted to the attainment of the objects he had 
at the time in view. Mr. Macaulay very truly observes 



CASKET OE REMINISCENCES. 163 

somewhere, and in language which I should willingly 
enough recite here did I bear the same distinctly in 
memory, that war being the greatest of evils, the long pro- 
traction of hostilities is, if possible, to be avoided ; and, 
therefore, as he infers, an active, vigorous, and awe-inspir- 
ing campaign may be, in general, regarded as dictated by 
an enlightened and far-seeing humanity. I am rarely so 
positive in my language as I feel inclined to be upon the 
point in question ; and I take the liber ity of declaring 
that I do not think that there lives beneath the sun a 
more kind-hearted, charitable, and genial gentleman than 
the distinguished subject of this notice. 

When about sixteen years ago the second vigilance com- 
mittee was organized in San Francisco, the Governor of the 
State of California, Mr. Johnson, sent General Sherman the 
commission of major general, with instructions to put down 
the forces of the committee at all hazards. He accepted 
the commission tendered, and issued a proclamation de- 
claring his determination to vindicate the wounded ma- 
jesty of the law ; but a few hours of calm and prudent 
consideration of the matter satisfied him that, situated as 
he was at the time, with the fiscal interests of thousands 
under his control, it would be both unjust and unwise to 
retain this commission. So he sent it back to the Gov- 
ernor at once. I have often heard his conduct at this con- 
juncture referred to in conversation, and never otherwise 
than in terms of respect and commendation. 

In the summer of 1860, 1 met General Sherman at the 
Relay House, a few miles on this side of Baltimore. We 
conversed for some fifteen or twenty minutes, in a frank 
and unreserved manner, touching the dangerous state of 
affairs then existing ; and he agreed with me in the opin- 
ion that the secessionists of the South were determined to 
bring on war with the Government for the purpose of es- 
tablishing slavery in the Territories. We were both quite 



164 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

unhappy at the prospect then apparently opening upon the 
country. I recollect well that he said to me with more 
than ordinary emphasis: " Well, if such a war is com- 
menced, which God forbid, I shall certainly offer my ser- 
vices to that Government which educated me and made 
me what I am." When I heard of him in the war, as I 
did very often, I always recurred to this interesting in- 
terview. I am satisfied that there is not a man in the 
Republic more absolutely free than General Sherman from 
everything like sectional prejudice, of which there are 
many and conclusive proofs. 



GASKET OF REMINISCENCES! 165 



REMINISCENCE No. XVII. 

GENERAL TAYLOR — GEORGE WASHINGTON CUSTIS — THE WASH- 
INGTON FAMILY — GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE. 

In the summer of 1850 the good people of Washington 
determined to celebrate the 4th of July in a very special 
manner, and I had the honor to be invited to deliver an ad- 
dress in commemoration of our national independence at 
the Washington Monument, whither a vast assemblage 
cMine, including President Taylor and his Cabinet. I en- 
deavored, so far as it was in my power, to accommodate the 
speech which was to be uttered to the peculiar circumstances 
of the hour, and to do what I could to harmonize discordant 
opinions and guard against the serious sectional collision 
then plainly menaced. The crisis existing was indeed 
one of great anxiety and peril. Dark and portentous 
clouds begloomed the political firmament in two opposite 
directions, and it was difficult to tell whether the first 
movements of civil strife would occur in consequence of 
the violent action of extremists of the North or of those 
of the South. Mr. Hume tells us that the ''extremes are 
often nearer than the means," and so it proved in this in- 
stance. Mr. Clay and his friends in Congress were for 
immediately staunching the bleeding wounds in the body 
politic which had already been inflicted by the hands of 
over-heated zealots and selfish demagogues, wholly re- 
gardless of the public repose if they could but suceeed in 
accomplishing their own unholy ends. What was called 
at the time the "Non-action" policy, in opposition to the 
policy of adjusting at once in some just and reasonable 
manner the questions growing out of African slavery, 
was equally favored by the extremists in Congress from 



166 CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 

the North and the extremists of the South, which two 
factions were alike, and about equal ly, opposed to any 
settlement which might have the effect of giving the na- 
tion quietude and safety and restore the suspended feel- 
ings of national brotherhood. Posterity is destined to ex- 
perience a deep and painful feeling of astonishment at 
rinding that there were in the bosom of the Republic at 
this time so many individuals, who, upon various pretexts, 
were resolved to do all in their power to prolong the sea- 
son of civil strife and perpetuate the evils of sectional dis- 
trust and animosity ; and still more surprise will probably 
be felt by after generations at learning that men of the 
most conflicting: views and wishes in the two houses of 
Congress were daily and hourly conferring with each other 
as to the means of defeating the compromise measures 
then pending in the National Legislature, and keeping 
open the field of discussion by the occupancy of which 
they were hoping to enhance their own local popularity. 
In performing the task which had been allotted to me of 
haranguing the multitudinous concourse which was in 
attendance on the day of our national anniversary, I couki 
not but be sensible of all the delicate and embarrassing 
circumstances which surrounded me, and what I said on 
this occasion was very far, indeed, from coming up to my 
own wishes, or perhaps satisfying the reasonable expecta- 
tions of ethers. It is gratifying now to remember that 
the noble-hearted patriot who then occupied the Presi- 
dential chair did me the honor to thank me, formally and 
publicly, for my poor but well-intended address, which act 
of noble generosity was performed by him not without 
visible indications of strong inward emotion. I suppose 
that a purer and more disinterested devotee to liberty than 
General Zachary Taylor has never been elevated to the 
Presidential station. If he committed some palpable 
errors in his administration of the Government, and in 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 1(57 

some instances yielded too unreserved a confidence to 
tricky and unscrupulous counselors, this must be attributed 
altogether to his want of civic experience, and to the abso- 
lute guilelessness of his own nature. 

So soon as the oration was brought to a close, General 
Taylor and his Cabinet left the well-shaded platform upon 
which they had been seated, and prepared to return to 
the Presidential mansion. Had they done so, in all proba- 
bility he would have been still living. But the announce- 
ment being made that some traveler had just brought 
with him to Washington a handful of dust from the 
mausoleum of the famed Kosciusko, and that it was de- 
sired that all present should witness the deposit of this 
same dust in a niche prepared for its reception in another 
part of the monument, where several additional addresses 
would be made, the amiable President could not refuse 
the honor of his presence, and there he stood for more 
than an hour, without even an umbrella over his head for 
a considerable portion of the time, while the untempered 
rays of a noonday July sun were pouring down in full 
power upon him. Before the ceremonial was at an end, Gen- 
eral Taylor was thoroughly exhausted, and going home 
he was tempted by the extreme thirst which he felt and 
his heated and languid condition to swallow down copious 
draughts of cold ice- water, and to partake of unwholesome 
viands sent hastily to him from the kitchen in a half- 
cooked state, which speedily brought on an attack from 
which he died in a few days. 

The celebrated George Washington Parke Custis, of 
Arlington, was the principal speaker on the interesting 
occasion just alluded to, and was said to have acquitted 
himself of the task assigned in his usual felicitous manner. 
Air. Custis had been long renowned as a brilliant and im- 
pivssive declaimer, and even in very early life had de- 
livered several orations in connection with the stirring 



168 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

public events of the time which had awakened much admi- 
ration. I recollect especially his funeral speech in honor of 
General Lingan, a Revolutionary worthy who had lost his 
life at Baltimore at the hands of a furious political mob, 
amid a scene of riotous violence such as has seldom discred- 
ited the character of the intelligent and patriotic city 
where it occurred. I knew Mr. Custis well, and regarded 
him always as an amiable, upright, and accomplished gen- 
tleman. Had he been born poor, he would probably have 
attained great distinction in some one of the learned pro- 
fessions. He was a high-spirited, sociable, and patriotic 
personage, a devoted lover of the National Union, and a 
firm supporter of the Government. For the character of 
Washington, of whom he was an adopted son, he ever 
cherished the most profound veneration, and often whilst 
he lived did he supply the columns of the National Intelli- 
gencer with graphic and intensely interesting reminiscences 
of the Father of his Country. 

Mr. Custis, in addition to his being the grandson of 
Mrs. Washington, was a descendant of the celebrated 
Lord Baltimore, under whose auspices the State of Mary- 
land was colonized and the first formal edict of universal 
religious toleration adopted and promulgated. The maiden 
name of his mother was Calvert. After the decease of her 
first husband she married Dr. David Stuart, by whom she 
had a numerous progeny. Many of her descendants of the 
Stuart name, and under other names also, are yet surviv- 
utf ' ing in Virginia and elsewhere. The second marriage of 
. \ Mrs. Custis took place during the trying days of the 
Revolutionary struggle, and those who shall choose to look 
V*l into the matter more deeply will find among the letters of 
\ jo^General Washington, published under the supervision of 
^V^ Mr. Spark^s, a highly interesting correspondence relative 
to this same marriage. Dr. Stuart was the person who 
first called General Washington's attention to the famous 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 169 



Mazzei letter, written by Mr. Jefferson, a very interesting 
account of which will be found in the " Life of Washing 
ton," by Chief Justice John Marshall. As this Dr. Stuart 
was the eldest brother of my own venerated mother, it 
may become me to say nothing special here in commenda- 
tion of his ability, his remarkable learning, and the vir- 
tues which adorned his character. 

Mr. Custis had three sisters, and no brother. Of these 
three sisters one married Mr. Lawrence Lewis, of Fairfax 
county, in the State of Virginia. Him I remember well, 
and I entirely concur with those who supposed him to ex- 
hibit a most remarkable likeness in person to General 
Washington, whose nephew he was; at least he was so 
much like the best pictures of Washington that he might 
be well supposed by one who did not know otherwise to 
have actually sat for them. A second of the Miss Custises 
married a Mr. John Law, a nephew of Lord Ellenborough, 
of England. Mr. Law had spent the early portion of his 
life in the East Indies. He is reported to have been a 
man of much learning and of great astuteness, but must 
have been also very eccentric in his temper and his habits 
of life. It is stated of him that his mind was in general 
so deeply occupied with matters of an abstract character 
that he became occasionally oblivious of ordinary con- 
cerns, including even his own name, and that having 
called one day at the post office for letters, one of the 
clerks there, who did not know him, inquired his name; 
upon which he became painfully embarrassed. " Name I" 
ww Name !" he said, and not being able to give the desired 
information on the subject, he suddenly turned away from 
the post-office window and moved rapidly toward his 
home, for the purpose of there refreshing his memory, 
when, meeting some acquaintance who said to him, " Good 
morning, Mr. Law," he at once exclaimed, " Ah, that is 



V 



170 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

the name," and went back quickly to the post office to get 
possession of his letters there remaining. 

Mrs. Peter, another sister, I knew for many years. She 
must have been exceedingly handsome in early life. When 
I last saw her, in 1851, she was a noble looking person, full 
of life and intelligence. It was to her that one of the most 
beautiful and interesting letters ever written by Wash- 
ington was addressed, on the occasion of her attending the 
first public social party. There is a paternal tenderness 
displayed in this letter, set off, as it is, with an exquisite 
play of humor, that presents Washington in one of his 
most captivating aspects, No one can now read this 
epistle without loving this great and good man far more 
than he could well have done had he never seen its con- 
tents. Mrs. Peter left several descendants, who are fav- 
orably known to the history of the country. She was a 
woman of large intelligence and of countless virtues. 

I have heretofore said something of the only daughter 
of Mr. Custis, Mrs. Robert E. Lee. I shall venture to 
mention now one or two facts in the history of her distin- 
guished husband which are perhaps at present not fully 
known to all. General Lee was never a politician, in the 
ordinary sense of the word. He had been all his life a 
soldier and a faithful and efficient one. He had gained 
great distinction in the Mexican war, had rendered much 
and valuable service often on various fields of duty, and 
had a right to expect that when General Scott should 
either die or resign he would himself succeed that illus- 
trious personage in the chief military command of the 
Republic. No one loved more intensely the Federal Union 
which his forefathers had assisted so prominently in estab- 
lishing than he did. He had never given his sanction to 
the dogmas of nullification and secession. His mind was 
too sound and well regulated to render this even possible. 
He had done nothing whatever in 1861 or before to bring 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 171 

on the crisis which he found himself now most unexpect- 
edly compelled to meet. He saw naught whatever in the 
condition of the country to justify the States of the South 
in assuming the attitude of hostility to the General Gov- 
ernment which most of them were now doing. He was 
clearly and undoubtingly of opinion that if the South had 
experienced grievances or was menaced with injury of any 
kind, it would be far better to seek relief by pacific expe- 
dients and by the employment of known constitutional 
remedies. He at least had no personal ambition to gratify 
by aiming to be the head of a grand revolutionary move- 
ment. The imagined glories of despotic military rule had 
no charms for him. He ardently loved his country, and 
every part of that country. He was greatly attached to 
his brothers in arms, side by side with whom he had in 
past times participated in so many difficult and sanguinary 
battles. What personal advantage could he expect to gain 
by the war which had been so injudiciously and madly 
commenced, and which no sound-thinking man could sup- 
pose was likely to have any result but that which was 
afterward experienced ? It has been said of late that on his 
arrival in Washington, on the 18th of April, 1861, the 
command of the army of the Government was tendered 
him, and that he declined it. This fact I see now stated 
positively upon the authority of the Hon. Montgomery 
Blair, who must have been correctly informed as to this 
matter. General Lee is reported to have declined it, and 
General Scott is said to have thus briefly addressed him 
on the occasion : " Lee, you have made the greatest mis- 
take in your life ; but I feared it would be so." 

Two days thereafter he announced to General Scott his 
final conclusion in these memorable words : 

"Arlington, Va., April 20, 1861. 
"General: Since my Uiterview with you, on the 18th instant, I 
have felt that I ought not to retain my commission in the army, l 
therefore tender my resignation, which I request .von will recommend 



172 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

for acceptance. It would have been presented at once but for the 
struggle it has cost me to separate myself from a service to which I have 
devoted all the best years of my life and all the ability I possessed. 
During the whole of that time — more than a quarter of a century — I 
have experienced nothing but kindness from my superiors, and the most 
cordial friendship from my comrades. To no one, General, have I been 
as much indebted as to yourself for uniform kindness and consideration ; 
and it has always been my ardent desire to merit your approbation. 1 
shall carry to the grave the most grateful recollections of your kind 
consideration, and your name and fame will always be dear to me. 

Save in defense of my native State I never desire again to draw ray 
sword. Be pleased to accept my most earnest wishes for the contin- 
uance of your happiness and prosperity, and believe me most truly 
yours, R. E. Lee.' 1 

How General Lee conducted himself afterward, as a 
military commander, is already known to the world. 
What wisdom he displayed subsequently in surrendering 
his army after all hopes of success in the Confederate 
struggle for -independence had become extinct is equally 
well known. Mr. Davis' insane proclamation from Dan- 
ville afterward, calling the propriety of General Lee's sur- 
render in question, and proposing to continue, a contest in 
which even the most complete success would have been 
ruin and degradation, is one of those airy bubbles upon 
the surface of the stormy ocean of the past which has 
long since exploded, even by the force of its own ineffable 
feebleness. 

The letter of General Lee, of January 23, 1861, written 

at Fort Mason, Texas, throws a still stronger light upon 

his painful moral struggle through which the great soul 

was now passing. These are his impressive words : 

•' I received Everett's ' Lifeof Washington,' which you sent me, and 
enjoyed its perusal. How his spirit would be grieved could he see the 
wreck of his mighty labors. I will not, however, permit myself to be- 
lieve until all ground for hope is gone that the fruit of his noble deed- 
will be destroyed, and that his precious and virtuous example will so 
soon be forgotten by his countrymen. As far as 1 can judge by the 
papers we are between a state of anarchy and civil war. May God 
avert both these cwils from us ! 1 fear that mankind for years will not 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 173 

ho sufficiently Christianized to bear the absence of restraint and force. 
I sec that four States have declared themselves out of the Union ; four 
more will apparently follow their example. Then, if the 1 border States 
are brought into the gulf of revolution, one-half of the country will he 
arrayed against the other. I must try and be patient and await the 
end, tor I can do nothing to hasten or retard it." 

It seems to be manifest that if Virginia had refused to 
participate in the secession movement General Lee would 
not have resigned his commission in the United State* 
army. Had Virginia remained firm, so would North 
Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas have done, and perhaps 
a State or two more. General Lee would then undoubt- 
edly have been forced by his own sense of duty to lead the 
Union army. It is doubtful whether, under such circum- 
stances, the war would have lasted a twelvemonth. I hold 
it to be even probable that in such a case no great battle 
would have been fought at all. Had a short struggle of 
arms occurred, General Lee, after securing the true safety 
and honor of all the States by maintaining the Federal 
Union in full vigor, on the restoration of peace, would 
have occupied very much the same position as the cele- 
brated Duke of Argyle did in Scotland in 1715, who, after 
overcoming rebellion on Scottish soil, and putting down 
the forces of the Pretender, had it in his power to save his 
deluded fellow-citizens of Scotland from immeasurable 
sufferings which might have otherwise fallen upon them, 
and which their own irritability was constantly provok- 
ing. It is easy to imagine how effective such a man as 
General Lee would have been, after defending the Gov- 
ernment against armed assailment ; after his own wisdom 
and labor should have brought back peace and safety to 
that very Government, and to the whole American people, 
had the victorious party shown itself, in some glaring in- 
stance afterward unduly oppressive toward the fallen, in 
interposing for the rescue of those whom he had been com- 
pelled to chasten in war. A new MacCallunmiore might 



174 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

have then made his appearance even in the halls of Con- 
gress, and have responded to some American Hardwicke, 
almost in the very words of the Duke of Argyle, when he 
said : " I appeal to the House — to the nation, if I can be 
justly branded with the infamy of being a jobber or a par- 
tisan. Have I been a briber of votes ? a buyer of boroughs ? 
The agent of corruption for any purpose or on behalf of 
any party ? Consider my life, examine my actions in the 
field and in the Cabinet, and see where lies a blot that can 
attach to my honor. I have shown myself the friend of 
my country — the loyal subject of my king. I am ready 
to do so again without an instant's regard to the powers 
or smiles of a court. I have experienced both, and am 
prepared with indifference for either. I have given my 
reasons for opposing this measure, and have made it ap- 
pear that it is repugnant to the international treaty of 
union, to the liberty of Scotland, and reflectively to that 
of England, to common justice, to common sense, and to 
the public interest. Shall the metropolis of Scotland, the 
capital of an independent nation, the residence of a long 
line of monarchs, by whom that noble city was graced and 
dignified — shall such a city, for the fault of an obscure and 
unknown body of rioters, be deprived of its honors and its 
privileges, its gates and its guards ? and shall a native 
Scotsman tamely behold the havoc ? I glory, my Lords, in 
opposing such unjust rigor, and reckon it my dearest pride 
and honor to stand up in defense of my native country, 
while thus laid open to undeserved shame and unmerited 
spoliation."* 

That General Lee, had he been more fortunately situated, 
might have been able to enact the noble part herein depic- 
tured I hold to be certain ; but " circumstance, that un- 



*This speech was made by the Dnkc of Argyle in connection with 
the affair of the Porteous mob. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 175 

spiritual god and misdirector," came forward and touched 
Lis energies " with his crutch-like rod " and " turned his 
flowing hopes to dust — the dust we all have trod." 



170 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



REMINISCENCE No. XVIII. 

DUELING — MAJOE KEMP — BERNARD TIOOE— DOCTOR GEORGE 

GRAHAM. 

Bella, horrida bdla. 
FJ Thybrim mutto spumantem sanguine cento. 

These prophetic words of the Cumsean sybil might well 
have been applied a century ago to that portion of our 
country situated upon the hanks of our own pater fluvium, 
the Mississippi river, and its tributary streams and stream- 
lets. For since we know that helium is only a contraction 
of the old Latin word duellum, signifying battle — (in refer- 
ence to which Cicero says: "Antiqui nomina contrahebant, 
quo essentaptiora, nam ut duellwm est bellum") — the prevalence 
of duels, or affairs of honor, as they have heen called, in 
our Western and Southern regions, mi^ht be in this sense 
sufficiently well expressed by words signifying the con- 
tinued raging of bloody and ghastly wars of any kind. 

But, without dwelling upon this point of scholastic 
criticism, let me remind the gentle reader, whether learned 
or unlearned, that the dueling-field was far more resorted 
to for the settlement of personal disputes forty years ago 
in every part of our much favored land than it is at the 
present time, and that scenes of --mortal conflict, brought 
on not seldom for little or no reasonable cause, were far 
more numerous in our Southern and Western States and 
Territories than in the older and more settled common- 
wealths, in which our fathers and our fathers' fathers 
quietly and piously dwelt; though it can hardly be said 
that any portion of our wide-spread domain has been at 
all times entirely exempt from this abominable practice. 
Eminent public statesmen among the Romans, from the 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 177 

earliest period of the annals of their great republic, indulged 
often in fierce and insulting controversy, sometimes end- 
ing in scenes of physical conflict, but nothing like a regu- 
lar duel, such as known in our time, was ever thought of 
by the parties disputant. Demosthenes and Eschines 
railed at each other for hours and days together, in lan- 
guage far more caustic and irritating than any modern 
speaker has shown himself to be master of, but when this 
mutual objurgation was over no one apprehended that a 
more deadly conflict would thereafter bring about the 
needless destruction of human life. For some centuries 
past, though, in most of our Christianly civilized coun- 
tries, dueling has been more or less in vogue, and is gen- 
erally spoken of in them all as a relic of the days of chiv- 
alry, as, indeed, it doubtless is. Within a century past 
Fox and Pitt were both known to draw trigger; Sheri- 
dan fought one of the most desperate duels ever described 
— before, however, he attained a seat in Parliament ; Cur- 
ran and Flood, the great Irish orators, gave noted proof 
that they did not at all disapprove of this unreasonable 
mode of settling personal misunderstandings. O'Connell 
killed his man ; after which, though averse to the further 
shedding of blood with his own hands, in a mode alike 
unsanctioned by the laws of God and man, he is under- 
stood not to have blamed his son very harshly for taking 
it upon himself to imitate his own early example. Per- 
haps the killing of Alexander Hamilton by Aaron Burr 
awakened the first decidedly retroactive feeling in this 
country against the practice of dueling; though it is cer- 
tain that many instances have since occurred in the neigh- 
borhood of New York and Washington city, and among 
men of great and merited distinction, too, showing that 
public sentiment is not even yet so firmly established in 
opposition to a species of warfare so unphilosophical and 
12r 



178 » ASlvET OF REMINISCENCES. 

so savage, as all humane and enlightened minds would 
wish it to be. 

In the days of mv early boyhood a duel occurred within 
some twenty-five or thirty miles of the city of Washing 
ton, which must have produced at the time a very 
deep impression upon public sentiment throughout Vir- 
ginia, for the deplorable result of this memorable conflict 
of* arms is said to have been the principal cause of the 
excellent anti-dueling act to be found in the statute-book 
of this grave and dignified Commonwealth, which exam- 
ple of wise and wholesome legislation is well known to 
have been since very extensively imitated elsewhere. The 
affair to which I have just made special reference was the 
famous duel between Kemp and Ilooe, of Prince William 
county. Hooe was a man of fine intellect, of highly re- 
spectable attainments, and of great personal popularity. 
T well recollect seeing him repeatedly at my father's 
house, and of hearing him spoken of in terms of the warm- 
est commendation. He was a relative of my own, and 
was much loved and honored by a large and influential 
family connection. Bernard Hooe was a zealous Federal- 
ist, and had once or twice represented the county of 
Prince William in the State Legislature, in which body 
he was a great favorite. Mr. Kemp was a Democrat, and 
the quarrel between these gentlemen was almost strictlj T 
political. Kemp shot down his antagonist, who died im- 
mediately, leaving behind him a widow and many chil- 
dren, all of whom were known to me familiarly. Many 
a time have I participated in the reproduction of this 
duel, as one of a band of youthful dramatis person^ in the 
parlor of my own home, with certain of my equals in age, 
and in the absence of all grown persons ; and never did I 
go through this melancholy scene without fresh emotions 
of distress and chagrin. 

I have seen the victor in this contest more than once. 
He was considerably the junior of Hooe, was also a man 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 179 

of fine presence, and. bore the reputation of being a warm- 
hearted, brave, enterprising, and intelligent young man. 
He is described to me to have been a deputy sheriff in the 
county of Prince William for some years, and to have ac 
quired in that office much popularity. 

There was in this county at that time a young' lady of 
singular beauty and accomplishments, of the name of 
Graham. Her education had been well attended to, and 
all who knew her spoke of her temper and manners in 
language of the warmest commendation. She was the 
daughter of Dr. George Graham, a gentleman of rare ac- 
complishments and high reputation in the medical pro- 
fession. He had been educated at Edinburgh, being him- 
self a native of Scotland, and was reported to be of good 
birth and affiliations in his native land. This gentleman 
was the third husband of my venerated grandmother, and 
often have I sat in his lap in childhood and been the 
grateful recipient of his more than fatherly attentions. 
After the decease of my grandmother, Dr. Graham mar- 
ried a Miss Hooe, sister to the Bernard Hooe whom I 
have already mentioned as having lost his life on the field 
of honor. 

When in my twelfth year, I heard the Episcopal funeral 
service read by my father (there being no minister pres- 
ent) over the remains of Dr. Graham on one of the coldest 
winter days I ever experienced. The grave in which this 
excellent man lies interred is distant from the celebrated 
Dull Run battle-field some two or three miles only. A 
cannon fired by the Federal army might have transported 
the ball with which it was charged to the verv margin of 
that same grave ; which fact I mention particularly for 
a reason which will presently be obvious. 

Kemp was a warm admirer of Miss Graham, and made 
proposals of marriage to her. The young lady was said 
to have been much attached to him, and to have expressed 
her willingness to become his wife. Friends interfered 



180 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

who broke off the marriage. Miss Graham was afterward 
married to Mr. Bird, an old bachelor, and about the 
wealthiest man in Prince William county. He died in 
less than a year, and, as soon as decency would allow, 
Kemp renewed his matrimonial proposals to his former 
mistress, and was accepted. Bird had devised to his 
young wife the whole of his estate. 

After Kemp's marriage with Mrs. Bird he disposed of 
her property, and removed to the far Southwest. He lo- 
cated in the neighborhood of the city of Natchez, where 
he became a wealthy and prosperous cotton-planter. 
When General Jackson marched to the defense of New 
Orleans he passed through the State of Mississippi. Here 
General (then Colonel) Hinds joined, him, bringing to his 
aid that celebrated dragoon regiment which distinguished 
itself so much in the memorable battle which saved "the 
booty and beauty " of ^New Orleans from the cruel hands 
of the spoiler. Kemp commanded one of the finest com- 
panies in Hinds' regiment, and participated in all the 
glory of his illustrious commander, of whom General 
Jackson said in his famous report of the battle that he 
rode fearlessly between the two opposing hosts just before 
the moment of conflict, " the pride of one army and the 
terror of the other." Kemp returned 'home and lived 
only for a few years, leaving a number of children. 
Among the daughters who sprang from him was a Mrs. 
Howell, of whom, I am told, Mrs. Jefferson Davis is the 
daughter. If this be true, (and others perhaps know more 
of the facts now related than I could possibly do,) why, 
then, when Jefferson Davis rode over the Bull Run bat- 
tle-field, on the clay after this famous conflict of arms, he 
was, perhaps without being at all conscious of the fact, 
within a few hundred yards of that sequestered forest 
grave where, thirty years before, I had seen the mortal 
remains of his wife's great grandfather solemnly depos- 
ited! 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 181 



REMINISCENCE No. XIX. 

DUELS — S. S. PRENTISS— MASON AND M'CARTY — BARRON AND 

DECATUR m'dUEFEE AND CUMMINS — CLAY AND RANDOLPH 

PETTUS AND BIDDLE WISE AND COKE BENTON AND LU- 
CAS. 

Having yielded to the request of several respected 
friends who desired that I should give to the public some 
account of the duels in which I have heretofore been a 
party, or which were transacted under my own personal 
observation, I deem it expedient to declare in advance my 
own decided disapproval of the practice of settling individ- 
ual disputes upon the field of honor, as it has be'en so long 
grossly misnamed. There never was a time when 1 
held any other sentiments than those I now utter, and did 
I think that the statement of what I bear in memory 
touching matters of this kind would tend in the least de- 
gree to impart dignity and popularity to this enormous 
social evil nothing could tempt me to utter even a word 
or a syllable designed to preserve what I have seen or ex- 
perienced in former days in connection with this most re- 
volting subject. 

So far as dueling is concerned I occupy precisely the 
situation which I did in reference to the late unhappy 
civil war. No one, I am sure, can be mentioned who more 
uniformly condemned the absurd and dangerous principle 
of secession, in support of which that war was commenced, 
than myself. No man ever deplored more deeply than I 
did the prevalence of sectional prejudices in two opposite 
portions of the Union, menacing, almost for a half cen- 
tury, just such a fearful and disastrous combustion as af- 
terward ensued. No one ever struggled harder than I did 



182 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

to prevent that fatal internecine war through which we 
have been doomed to pass. No man was ever better satis- 
tied than I have been for nearly fifty years that any 
attempt to disrupt this Union of States and divide it into 
separate republics, even if successful, would be ruinous to 
all engaged therein, opening the way, as it would cer- 
tainly do, to continued border wars, standing armies for 
the purpose of guarding against ever-impending attacks 
from without, and the ultimate establishment of a mon- 
archical despotism in each one of the new-formed confeder- 
acies. No individual will ever be found who had clearer 
convictions than I have always entertained of the inevita- 
bly demoralizing influence of all wars, and especially of 
those occurring between people of the same derivation, 
language, and civil history. And yet was I drawn into 
that very war which I had so long dreaded and so often 
predicted. My nature was too weak to resist the influ- 
ences which were brought to bear upon me. When the 
blood of my kindred began to stream upon my natal soil ; 
when all with whom I stood connected, either by ties of 
consanguinity or of affinity, had taken sides in the con- 
flict ; when my beloved native State, the venerated mother 
of many States, and the prolitic genitrix of so many men 
of immortal renown, broke loose from her moorings and 
unfurled the Confederate banner almost in view of the 
National Capitol, my once boasted firmness gave way. I 
became an earnest champion of resistance. I aided in 
arming my gallant young countrymen of the South 
against the wisest, noblest, freest Government that the 
wit of man has ever put in action. I did this without a 
sober and scrutinizing examination of all the real circum- 
stances then in existence. I joined in making causeless 
and unprovoked war; war, too, under an Executive Chief 
whose incompetency I had long known ; the selfishness of 
whose nature was as familiar to mv mind as his wizard 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 183 

physiognomy was to my vision; whose lawless aspira- 
tions to despotic power I had for many years more than 
suspected; and whose overweening prejudices and par- 
tialities I could not doubt would be every moment dis- 
playing themselves so long as he could anywhere find a 
few blind servitors willing to obey his behests and aid him 
in the gratification of his enormous and insatiable am- 
bition. Yes, I entered into that war blindly and madly, 
with little to give me hope as to the future except the 
known virtue and intelligence of the Southern people and 
the heroic valor of that chivalrous and self-devoting sol- 
diery whose merits and whose sufferings in behalf of a 
cause in which they had so imp'ulsively entered will stand 
enrolled in ever-living characters upon the pages of the 
just-minded and philosophic historians whom future 
generations shall supply. 

If I committed the great error of my life in joining the 
ranks of insurrectionary hostility against that paternal 
government whose magnanimity toward the conquered is 
at this instant calling forth plaudits from the whole civil- 
ized world, much do I rejoice that it is yet in my power 
to make some little atonement for my past dereliction by 
a free and full confession thereof, and by doing all that is 
now possible for me to do in binding up the yet bleeding 
wounds of civil conflict ; in guarding the unwary against 
future aberrations from civil rectitude, and especially in 
calming the rage of ever-fermenting sectionalism ; in sup- 
pressing extreme party zeal wheresoever it may be found, 
and in persuading good men everywhere to join as com- 
patriots and brethren in upholding our beneficently 
framed, and yet more beneficently amended organic system, 
against all who may essay to overturn it by open violence, 
or to sap its foundations by the covert and insidious en- 
croachments of a spoils-loving and principle-renouncing 
partisanship. 



184 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

So, as I have said already, it is with me also in regard 
to dueling. I have at one time, and more than once, taken 
part in scenes enacted upon what men have chosen to call 
the "field of honor, even when, as I have already declared, 
I utterly condemned this ahsurd and barbarous mode of 
settling individual disputes. I found a vicious state of 
public sentiment existing in the Southwest when I went 
thither to reside in 1825, and I weakly and criminally 
yielded to it in opposition to my own inward convictions 
of right and propriety. I sorely regret all my sins in this 
regard, and offer now to make all the atonement in my 
power by asking forgiveness of a high-minded and gene- 
rous public. 

It has long been with me a subject of warm self-grat il- 
lation that I have never yet been so unfortunate as to take 
away human life upon occasions of this kind, for had 1 
done so, even had the whole world joined in forgiving me, 
never should I have forgiven myself. 

It seems to me to be the most surprising delusion that 
has ever entered the mind of a sane human creature that 
in a land of government and laws any man, or set of men, 
could feel justified in openly violating the prohibitoiy be- 
hests of those laws, and in setting the principles of social 
order at defiance. Surely it is only in the firm and steady 
maintenance of law that any man's life is safe, or any 
man's rights of property. It is mainly by the existence 
of laws, and of just and enlightened functionaries to ad- 
minister them, that civilized men are distinguishable from 
barbarians and savages. A country that boasts of having 
laws, and yet is compelled to confess its inability to en- 
force them, is not at all entitled to the respect, of the 
refined and cultivated portion of our race ; and a govern- 
ment which is not both able and willing to see right 
maintained and justice firmly administered, in opposition 
to all the efforts of violent and iniquitous persons any- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 185 

where to perpetuate indi victual wrong or obstruct the 
peaceful progress of society, deserves all the reproaches 
which are reported to have burst from the lips of the Scy- 
thian philosopher, Anacharsis, in his memorable conversa- 
tion with the great law-giver, Solon, touching the value 
of the legal code which he had just prepared for the peo- 
ple of Athens, when he said: "Your laws are strong 
enough to entangle feeble and innocuous Hies, but the 
hornets and wasps of your community will break through 
them at pleasure." 

I am happy to have it in my power to declare that the 
anti-dueling law of Virginia, already referred to, and 
others passed elsewhere in its likeness, had a very reforma- 
tory influence wherever they were duly enforced. But in 
a few years after its enactment the war of three years with 
Great Britain re-engendered elements of lawlessness, which 
exhibited their potency for mischief in various forms ; and 
the dignity unfortunately imparted to this unseemly and 
unchristian practice by various men of note in different 
parts of the Republic began soon to be felt by society in a 
very grievous manner. I well remember how much of 
public attention, not unmingled with admiration also, was 
called forth by certain duels fought between the years 
1815 and 1810. I will here specify a few of them only — 
those between Mason and McCarty, Decatur and Barron, 
Coffee and Jesse Benton, Houston and White, Clay and 
Randolph, McDuffee and Cummins, Benton and Lucas, 
Pettus and Biddle, Wise and Coke, &c. The scenes alluded 
to, described in all the newspapers of the time, had called 
into existence a code of social morals most deplorable in- 
deed, and influences which no young man of unestablished 
reputation for personal courage could be expected to resist 
without much difficulty. From the time of my own set- 
tlement in Tuscumbia, Alabama, in the autumn of 1825, 
tor at least twenty -five years thereafter, I really do not 
remember to have heard any one in the section of country 



186 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

where I resided call in question the propriety of dueling, 
and so imperious and exacting had public sentiment be- 
come in relation to this matter that no individual, not in 
close connection with some Christian denomination, could 
have refused a summons to the field of honor without be- 
ing consigned to permanent discredit and coldly shut out 
from all intercourse with gentlemen. To show hwo 
ridiculouslv far this evil state of things had o-one, I will 

«/ DO' 

here mention a fact which will, perhaps, a little startle 
some who have never heard of it before. A year or two 
previous to the breaking out of the Mexican war (the pre- 
cise date not now recollected) a large public meeting was 
held in the city of Vicksburg, Miss., in which the cele- 
brated Jefferson Davis and his elder brother, Joseph, took 
a very active and prominent part ; at which meeting 
resolutions were deliberately adopted upholding the prac- 
tice of dueling, and recommendiug this unpeaceful mode 
of settling disputes among men of honor in most emphatic 
language. About this period duels were multiplying 
along the bank of the Mississippi, and especially in the 
vicinage where these resolutions were adopted, with most 
fearful rapidity ; one of the political newspapers there 
lost, I think, as many as three editors at the pistol's 
mouth, and there were numerous victims of a like kind 
in that neighborhood — victims of a species of madness 
positively wprse than that which is known to prey upon 
the canine genus. 

It might well occasion astonishment that men should 

o 

be found anywhere who would thus openly and arrogantly 
attempt to incite the young and mercurial members of 
the community to this unblushing and audacious disre- 
gard of law and sound morality ; but the fact which I 
have just stated is just as true as it is that the States- 
rights-secession-Demoeratic party of the State of Missis- 
sippi in the year 1853 adopted a legislative resolution 
submitting to a test vote among the people of that State, 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 187 

at the then approaching general election, the propriety of 
taxing themselves to pay the accruing interest on the 
bonds of the Planters' Bank, the validity of which bonds 
no man has ever presumed to dispute ; and that the politi- 
cal party, routed in the previous election, when Mr. Davis 
had himself been ingloriously defeated, was able, by this 
notable expedient, to secure its own return to [tower, 
through the procurement of popular sanction for so base 
and unpardonable a fraud. In point of fact, I resigned 
the office of Governor thereafter, expressly upon the 
ground that I could not participate, in the least degree, in 
that unprecedented act of perfidy. Some will doubtless 
be surprised to learn that Jefferson Davis did himself per- 
sonally vote in the city of Natchez, in presence of wit- 
nesses, in that election, and in a very ostentatious manner, 
too, against the taxation proposed. I mention this case 
now, in this incidental way, in order to illustrate still 
more fully, if I can, the policy, in a community of laws, of 
always adhering to the requisitions of the law ; and, in a 
community professing to be humane and civilized, of giving 
no public countenance on any occasion to that which im- 
plies moral obliquity or the spirit of lawlessness. 

As to my own personal example in the matter of duel- 
ing I have only to say, in addition to what I have said 
already, that I had the misfortune twice to be challenged 
to the field of honor ; in two other instances I was foolish 
enough to be the challenging party. On the first occasion, 
in 1828, I was shot in the left shoulder by one of the cele- 
brated dueling pistols of General Jackson, borrowed by 
my antagonist from the venerable hero of the Hermitage ; 
who, by the by, bad certainly no hand in instigating this 
duel, and who lived and died my friend — bestowing upon 
me an important office almost in the lalt days of his ever- 
glorious administration. The last time I fought was in 
1837, when, after five shots having been exchanged, the 
affair terminated without the least personal injury to my-: 



188 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

self, my adversary having been disabled by my fifth shot, 
which had entered his hip. 

In the winter of 1832-'33 I had a personal dispute at 
the bar with the famous S. S. Prentiss, during the trial of 
a capital case of much importance. His language, though 
sufficiently retaliated by me at the time, induced me to 
send him a challenge, which I ought never to have thought 
of doing. He promptly accepted, proved a far better shot 
than myself, and wounded me very painfully in the left 
shoulder. We adjusted our dispute before we left the 
ground. An indiscreet friend or two of his spoke disparag- 
ingly of my conduct on the occasion. I was highly exas- 
perated, and wrote him a note demanding whether he had 
given his sanction to this act of injustice. He at once 
denied doing so. I published the correspondence. He 
placed such an interpretation upon my letter to him as 
gave him much offense. He proposed reopening the fight, 
which we did on exceedingly desperate terms. He 
shot me down, giving me a very dangerous wound. 
In three months we were good friends, and lived in the 
greatest amity and harmony up to the period of his death, 
which happened in 1849. Of this remarkable man, and 
of Alexander Iv. McClung, who waited on me to the field 
when I had my second duel with Mr. Prentiss, I shall 
have something special to say hereafter ; for these were, 
upon the whole, among the most remarkable men I nave 
every known. In native intellect I am satisfied that 
neither has had a superior in the Southwestern section of 
the Union. Both were brave, affectionate, magnanimous, 
and patriotic. I exceedingly doubt whether the State of 
Mississippi will ever have in her midst men of loftier 
bearing, and of greater intellectual powers than those 
friends of by-go%e years to whom I have thus briefly 
alluded. I haveno space here to speak of either of them 
as I feel them both to deserve at my hands, but shall take 
pride in doing so hereafter. 



CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 189 



REMINISCENCE No. XX. 

S. S. PRENTISS — RETURN J. MEIGS — MR. DAVIS — MONTGOMERY 
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS. 

In the year 18G8 I was traveling on the railroad which 
connects Nashville with Chattanooga, when I was intro- 
duced to a gentleman whom I had never seen before. Hav- 
ing formany years heard him spoken of as a jurist of pro- 
found learning, a ripe and accurate scholar, a public- 
spirited and patriotic man, and one renowned for all the 
virtues which adorn social and domestic life, I could not 
but regard it as an instance of personal good fortune thus 
to be allowed to form his acquaintance. Having much 
curiosity about this personage, I sought to draw him into 
familiar converse. I found him polite and affable; but he 
was evidently at the time in low spirits, and there was 
something in his tone and aspect that made the impression 
upon my mind that he had recently been the subject of 
some serious misfortune, the remembrance of which was 
then sorrowfully preying upon his sensibilities. He left the 
car in which we were riding at some way-side station, and 
when we were once more in motion, I learned on inquiry 
that this gentleman had a few days before lost an amia- 
ble and accomplished wife, whom he had loved with a de- 
votion almost romantic, and that his many friends were 
beginning: to fear that his former cheerfulness and anima- 
tion would never more return to him. 

The individual to whom I have been referring is now a 
resident of Washington city, and is the incumbent of an 
office, the duties of which all admit he is discharging with 
singular fidelity and credit. I will now meut ion his name: it 



190 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

is Return J. Meigs, a man who is at this moment greatly re. 
speeted and loved by all intelligent and patriotic citizens 
of Tennessee on either side of the Cumberland mountain. 
He was concerned for nearly thirty years in the manage- 
ment of as large a number of difficult and important 
causes in the Supreme Court of Tennessee, and before the 
subordinate judicial tribunals of the State, as any other 
individual that can be mentioned. He is the author of a 
voluminous digest of the judicial decisions of the State, 
which I have long thought by far the best arranged and 
most skillfully prepared book of the kind I have ever ex- 
amined on either side of the Atlantic. He is one of the 
compilers of the "Code of Tennessee, " which will favorably 
compare with any other municipal code I have yet seen. 
Tennessee is more indebted to this learned and accom- 
plished person for that choice selection of books to be 
found in her valuable State library than to all other persons 
besides, whether living or dead There are but few of the 
languages ever heretofore spoken among civilized men 
with which Air. Meigs is not more or less acquainted. 

In the Latin and Greek classics he has been asserted 
to be thoroughly versed by far more competent judges 
than I could justly claim to be considered. He ha s 
o;iven as much attention to what is now known as com- 
parative philology as any man I have yet met. There is 
no branch of human knowledge which is altogether terra 
incognita to his liberal and scrutinizing mind. He has 
ever manifested a deep and peculiar interest in the general 
spread of education, and in all things connected with re- 
form and improvement in the system of teaching. 

I often met Mr. Meigs in social intercourse in Xashvillc 
before he left that city, and now look back to the moments 
then spent in converse with him as among the most pleas- 
ant and instructive of my whole life. Our occasional en- 
counters in the room of our State library (shall I confess it?) 



< ASIvET OF REMINISCENCES. 191 

on the long and otherwise almost unoccupied Sabbath 
days, 1 am sure I shall never cease to remember, both with 
gratification and thankfulness, so long as I shall continue 
to live. 

Mr. Meigs practiced law for many years in Athens, East 
Tennessee, and afterward removed to Nashville, where he 
ran as brilliant, as useful, and as inoffensive a career as any 
man has ever done in any age or country. Here he re- 
mained until the terrible excitements which marked the 
first year of the late ever-to-be-lamented civil war induced 
him to dispose of his possessions in Nashville and remove 
elsewhere. It is, indeed, distressful to reflect that such a 
man as this should have been compelled, by such causes as 
I have alluded to, to leave the home to which he was so 
devotedly attached, and to break asunder so abruptly alj 
the social ties of a whole lifetime; but so it was. Mr. 
Meigs was a firm and inflexible Union man. He mortally 
detested the secession dogma, and had but little respect 
either for the understandings or the hearts of its noisy and 
mischievous advocates. He sometimes expressed his views 
in regard to these matters in the frank and manly lan- 
guage which he had ever been accustomed to use among 
his friends and associates, and he occasionally warned 
some (who I know deeply to regret now not having heeded 
his sage monitions) of the dangers and sufferings to which 
they were about to expose themselves and their country. 

But never for a moment did he descend to the use of 
coarse or scurrilous language; of which, indeed, he was 
wholly incapable. I have always been of opinion that 
nine-tenths of our Xashville population would have fought, 
if necessary, in defense of this excellent man's life orperson; 
but there were doubtless at the time in that/city, as is so 
apt to be the case in commercial places of this description, a 
few noisy zealots, hanging loosely on the skirts of society, 
and ambitious of acquiring a sort of vulgar notoriety, who 



192 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

were ready to make themselves acceptable in certain 
quarters by doing such a personage as this some violence. 
I certainly never knew that he had reason to consider him- 
self in danger until Mr. Meigs had ceased to be a citizen of 
Nashville. When he took his leave of Tennessee he left no 
equal behind him, either in scholarship or general attain- 
ment. The only man who indeed could be compared to 
him in the city of Nashville was the venerable Francis B. 
Fogg, who now, almost an octogenarian, is as genia! and 
kindly as he could have been fifty years ago, and has at 
this time no rival in the place of his residence in deep legal 
research, scholarly accomplishments, and in that calm and 
philosophic dignity of aspect and demeanor — blended- 
with a uniform graciousness of temper and a constantly 
overflowing benevolence, which have justly rendered him 
an object of universal esteem and veneration. 

I have been of opinion for several weeks past that these 
Reminiscences would not be complete without some special 
notice of the honored individual of whom I have said so 
much on this occasion, but I did not know exactly how I 
should manage to introduce him to the notice of my 
readers. This difficulty was removed this morning by the 
unexpected reception of a note from Mr. Meigs, which T 
now take the liberty of publishing, and even without 
asking his consent thereto. To the letter was prefixed a 
printed slip, which, on examining it, I found to be a short 
extract from one of my own former reminiscences. I here 
insert the printed slip, with Mr. Meigs' communication, 
precisely in the form in which they have just reached my 
hands. 

" It is gratifying to me to remember that I oner voted for S. S. Pren- 
tiss when he was a candidate for Congress, against the regularly nomi- 
nated ticket of my own party, just as now I should rejoice to recollect 
that [ had co-operated in elevating to the Presidency of the Union two 
such noble-spirited and gifted American statesmen as Henry Clay and 
Daniel Webster ; whose names, could they be inscribed on the Presi- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 193 

dential scroll in lien of two others thai T could specify, would transmit 
our loved Republic to the men of other ages invested with a grand and 
imperishable luster that all the vain and heartless triumphs of taction. 
devoted to the ingathering of the vulgar and perishable spoils ot office, 
can never compensate. '" 

This divine paragraph comes of the true inspiration of the historic 
muse, and, mejudice, rarely has the Goddess done herself greater credit. 
Seldom, indeed, has she made an appeal so pathetic to the masses who 
wield the destinies of our great experiment. Not often has she stamped 
upon the shameless front of faction a brand more ineffaceable. 

Washington, August 17, 1873. R. J. Meigs. 

Though I can not but feel that the above commendation 
is very far beyond my merits as a writer, yet am I not at all 
relucant to publish it here, for sundry reasons, the principal 
one of which is that I am anxious to avail myself of Mr. 
Meigs' high literary authority as an effectual counteractive 
to what I have learned, without any special emotion, that 
several paltry partisan scribblers have been publishing of 
late in decrial both of myself and of my currente ealamo ef- 
fusions. 

What my friend Mr. Meigs says, with something of 
stoical severity, concerning " the shameless front of 
faction,"' in connection with that which I have myself 
heretofore published in regard to the honored and lamented 
S. S. Prentiss, induces me to notice for a moment one or 
two other scenes in the career of that remarkable man 
which I have heretofore pretermitted. 

Mr. Prentiss was by nature a poet, lie wrote beautiful 
verses, which sometimes seemed to be impregnated with 
the loftiest inspiration. Several of his fugitive poetic 
productions, which I have often heard him recite to a 
choice bevy of friends, were exquisitely humorous. His 
recitations from Bryon, who was evidently his favorite 
among modern poets, were altogether the most impressive 
and electiifying 1 ever listened to. Both the " Siege of 
Corinth," and the " [sles of Greece," from the pages of 
kt Don Juan," 1 heard him repeat more than once, and in 

loR 



194 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

his golden convivial moments he would glowingly enun- 
ciate Byron's description of Alp, the Renegade — " Alp 
with the right arm bare " — dressed in character, that is 
to say, standing up in a fierce, soldierly attitude, denuded 
of his coat, and with his shirt-sleeve neatly tucked up 
above the elbow. I feel confident that Biyon himself 
would have been made more sensible of the grandeur and 
nameless beauties of his own noble poetry could he have 
listened to the soul-rousing recitals of one so strikingly 
like himself, both in genius and person, even to the natural 
lameness of his right foot. 

The last of many political controversies which I had 
with Mr. Prentiss occurred in the summer of 1840, in the 
town of Gallatin, before a vast crowd of ladies and gentle- 
men. The conflict continued for eleven hours; the 
speeches being delivered alternatively. I shall not under- 
take to describe the extraordinary powers displayed by 
this highly-gifted orator on this occasion. I would will- 
ingly now travel a thousand miles to hear what I then 
heard, and would cheerfully once more consent to act as 
an humble foil to show off more conspicuously the surpass- 
ing brilliancy of this wonderful genius. Not a word of 
discourtesy was spoken during this memorable day and 
night by either of us ; we slept amicably in the same room 
that night, in a little log tavern at Gallatin, and traveled 
in company next d ay, lunching on the road-side before we 
parted company for our respective homes. 

It is extremely gratifying to me now to recollect that 
when I was elected to the United States Senate in 184(J, 
Mr. Prentiss expressed himself as being highly rejoiced at 
the event. A month or two after I took my seat in thai 
body he addressed m e a friendly letter, in which he earn- 
estly pressed upon my attention the claim of a worthy 
lady to remuneration at the hands of the Government, on 
account of a considerable sum of money loaned by her 
ancestor, a celebrated merchant of Amsterdam, in aid of 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 195 

the American struggle for Independence. Mr. Prentiss 
had no pecuniary interest whatever involved in the case, 
hut he had examined the facts connected therewith, and 
had hecome thoroughly satisfied that the demand set up 
was a just one. I took up the matter at his instance 
at once, and succeeded in getting the claim paid by the 
order of the Secretary of the Treasury. I hope it is need- 
less to say that I received not a dollar for my trouble in 
that affair. 

My attention chances this moment to be called by a 
friend to the fact, often, as I understand, published here- 
tofore in various forms, that Mr. Prentiss, on the occasion 
of my last duel with him, audibly made some ludicrous 
remark about my " wild shooting," and recommended to 
certain boys who had climbed trees from which they could 
conveniently overlook the scene of combat, to descend 
therefrom if they did not wish that I should shoot them. 
I can only say that I never heard of this incident until 
fifteen or sixteen years after it is supposed to have 
occurred ; and it would seem to be hardly in unison with 
Mr. Prentiss' high-bred refinement and courtesy ; but 
re<i*ardincr the joke as told rather too o-ood a one to be 
spoiled by contradiction I have not heretofore given it 
any serious notice ; just in the same way as I have not 
deemed it necessary in airy formal manner to correct a mis- 
take made by the worthy Mr. Lanman in his Congres- 
sional Dictionary, who has put me down as being just four 
years older than I really am. 

T leave all such triHes as these for the discussion and 
entertainment of those who shall feel more interested in 
them than I could possibly do. 

The pointed expression used in Mr. Meigs 1 elegant note, 
"shameless front of faction," brought to my view at once 
the language of a certain chief of faction the other day at 
the Montgomery White Sulphur Springs, of Virginia, 
where he again attempted, most unamiably, to revive the 



196 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 






excitement? connected with the late unhappy war ; 
charged Generals Lee and Joe Johnston with having been 
" cheated '" by the Presidents and Generals of the United 
States into a deceitful peace; asserted that, had the subse- 
quent conduct of the Federal Government been antici- 
pated, nothing would have been more easy than for the 
Confederates to have won their independence in arms; 
praised the ladies of the South for not having yet sub- 
mitted to reconstruction ; absurdly menaced a renewal of 
the struggle of arms for the principles contended for for 
four years unsuccessfully ; and did all in his power to 
rekindle the feelings of sectional unkindness which good 
citizens everywhere over the land were hoping would be 
soon extinguished forever. This is the spirit of faction 
with a vengeance, and will, I fear, bring more detriment 
upon the long-suffering South than fifty such men as Mr. 
Davis would be able to compensate in a century. I trust 
that the Union-loving men of the Republic will soon find 
that Mr. Davis speaks only for himself and under the 
^ promptings of his own restless ambition, and not for the 
high-souled and patriotic men of the South by whom he 
is now exceedingly well known. If I thought he could 
understand sound Latinity as well as my scholastic friend 
Mr. Meigs, I* should be strongly tempted to give him a few 
lines from Horace's description of the disturbed condition 
of the Roman Republic when Sextus Pompey was about 
to make a piratical descent upon the coast of Italy, and 
say to him, in application to our own noble ship of State, 
now lying quietly anchored : 

navis, referent in mare te uovi 

Fluctus ! O quid agis? Fort iter occupa 
Portum. Nonne vides ut 

Nudum remigio latus, 
Ki mains celeri saucius Africo, 

Anteiiujeque gemant, ac ine fuiiibus 
Vix aura re carina: 

Possint imperiosius 
-3Cquor? 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 197 

There is one other assertion of Mr. Davis which may 
demand a graver and somewhat more pointed response. 
He says that he has yet to meet with the first Southern 
lady who has been reconstructed— that is to say, who is 
reconciled to the Government. Now, if he means sweep- 
ingly to declare that all the Southern ladies stiil cherish 
the spirit of rebellion, he certainly does them most cruel 
injustice, and may, in certain cases which I could specify, 
bring upon them a misconstruction on the part of the 
Government officers in Washington, that might result in 
serious injury to claims now pending before them. If he 
does not mean this, hut only intends to make known to 
the public that he has not happened to fall personally 
into the company of any Southern female not now breath- 
ing forth " war, pestilence, and famine" against the au- 
thorities at Washington and to those who submit quietly 
to their [tower, why I can see no earthly objection to 
admitting this to be true, since it may be that Mr. Davis 
has not been quite so. select of late in his choice of politi- 
cal counselors of the gentler sex as he might have been. 
If he expects now to stir up rebellion again in the South 
by such pitiful and slavering commendation of Southern 
women as trickled so deceitfully from his lips three days 
ago at the Montgomery White Sulphur Springs, I can 
tell him that he never made a greater blunder in his life. 
Our women of the South are not yet all Amazons, and all 
the more refined and intelligent among them do ardently 
desire peace and the universal diffusion of kind feeling 
among all classes of our people, from the wave-resounding 
shore of the boisterous Atlantic to the sweet, quiet mar- 
gin of the far-off Pacific. 



198 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



REMINISCENCE No. XXI. 

m'NUTT — JEFFERSON DAVIS — ANDREW JOHNSON. 

At the special request of friends to whose judgments I 
owe much deference —friends who have been long familiar 
with some very curious and stirring events in my own 
early history which I have heretofore refrained from com- 
municating to the public at large from the apprehension 
which I could not but feel that by doing so in detail I 
should possibly incur the charge of egotism, (so likely to 
be applied in all such cases) — I shall now proceed to give 
some account of a few matters not heretofore narrated. 

A day or two after I reached the city of Natchez, in 
the winter of 1830-'31, 1 was introduced to an individual 
of whom I had then never previously heard. His name 
was Alexander G. McNutt. He was a native of Rock- 
bridge county, Virginia, and was doubtless very credit- 
ably connected there. Mr. McNutt appeared to be at 
that time about thirty-two or three years old. He was a 
man of huge bulk; exhibited in a very striking manner 
all the ordinary indications of good living, and had be- 
come much renowned as a liberal consumer both of meats 
and of strong drink. He was a lawyer by profession, and 
had located in the city of Vicksburg some ten years be- 
fore. He got but little employment in his profession for 
several years, but Mr. Huff, a wealthy merchant in Vicks- 
burg, having then recently retired from business, and hav- 
ing a great deal of money owing to him by his numerous 
customers, threw, to the general surprise of the commu- 
nity, the whole mass of his outstanding claims into the 
hands of McNutt for collection ; for whom he had in some 
way contracted a strong partiality. It is but justice to 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 199 

Mr. McNutt to say that lie was very diligent and success- 
i*i 1 1 in the task thus devolved on him, and, in a year <>r 
two after Mr. Huffs business was wound up by him, lie 
got into a very large collecting practice, and obtained re- 
cognition as a man of considerable pecuniary means, lie 
then formed a partnership with one Joel S. Cameron in 
the business of cotton-planting, and at the time of my 
meeting him at Natchez, as mentioned, this cotton-plant- 
ing firm was reported to have made the largest crops in 
proportion to the number of hands employed ever known 
in Mississippi. Perhaps Cameron was, upon the whole, 
one of the most skillful planters that had ever undertaken 
the cultivation of the earth ; and the plantation upon 
which he was located had been long celebrated as being 
peculiarly adapted to the growing of cotton. It was situ- 
ated among the alluvial hills which surround Vicksburg 
on all sides except along the river bank, and inclosed 
within its limits a deep and beautiful lake, the vaporous 
effusion of which was supposed to be particularly propi- 
tious to the growth of vegetation of every description. This 
was the precise state of affairs when I first saw A. Gr. 
McNutt in the city of Natchez, a little more than forty 
years ago. Having determined to settle in Vicksburg, I 
went thither late in the month of January, 1831, leaving 
my new acquaintance, McNutt, behind me in Natchez, 
with other members of the V icksburg bar, attending upon 
the Supreme Court of the State, then in session. 

A few days after getting to Vicksburg a report reached 
that place that a personal difficulty, growing out of a 
heated conversation upon State politics, had arisen at one 
of the hotels in Natchez, between McNutt and a brother 
attorney, Mr. Joseph Smith, (with whom afterward I be- 
came well acquainted,) in the course of which the parties 
interchanged uncivil and insulting language, and even 
came to blows; that is to say, Smith slapped McNutt's 
jaws, who, unfortunately, at the moment, having lost his 



200 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

presence of mind, made no attempt to retaliate in kind, el- 
even to defend himself. 'Phis was a most deplorable state 
of affairs, it must be confessed, considering the condition 
of public sentiment in Mississippi in regard to such mat- 
ters at that period. When McXutt got back to Vicks- 
burg, which he did in a few (lays, lie immediately sought 
an interview with me, and asked my advice as to the 
course he should pursue in order to the vindication of bis 
wounded personal honor. lie requested me to state 
frankly to him what it would be best tor him to do. I 
inquired of him immediately whether he recognized what 
was called the code of honor. He said he did. " Then," 
said I, " the matter seems to me to be of very easy solu- 
tion. If you had stricken Mr. Smith in turn, when you 
received the indignity at his hands of which you com- 
plain, I should say, wit lout hesitation, that you were not 
bound to carry this matter any further: hut as you did 
not, you are now hound, in order to retrieve your charac- 
ter, certainly at this moment under a cloud, either to at- 
tack him on the street-side with weapons, after having 
given him due warning, or to send him a challenge to 
meet you in the mode recognized among gentlemen. To 
the former I am utterly opposed, since a right on the street- 
side might involve the Lives of innocent persons, and this 
would be, moreover, in my judgment, an indecent viola- 
tion of the rules of social decorum and propriety. I would 
advise you, therefore, to send Mr. Smith a challenge im- 
mediately, unless you have determined to submit dis- 
gracefully to the outrage of which you have been the re- 
cipient." He then told me that he must ask my aid in 
the preparation of a challenge, as he was wholly unac- 
customed to the mode of procedure used in such cases. I 
drew up a short note for him, in the usual form, and, 
after having read the same in his hearing, handed it to 
him for signature. He took it and read it over, hut in a 
second or two I saw from the discomposure which he 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 201 

evinced thai he was much in the condition of the valiant 
Bob Acres, as described so inimitably by Sheridan. He 
read the challenge over several times, his agitation deep- 
ening every instant, and finally said to me: " I would 
prefer keeping this paper by me until to-morrow morning, 
with a view to a slight alteration in its phraseology ; to- 
morrow I will bring it to your lodgings, and ask you to de- 
liver it to my adversary." " Very well, " said I; " the 
note should surely be such a one as you could yourself 
fully approve, and I will now withdraw, with a view to 
giving you an opportunity of well considering the busi- 
ness, and coming to such conclusion as may prove entirely 
satisfactory to yourself hereafter." 

Ft is almost useless to say that the subject of the chal- 
lenge was never again discussed between Mr. Xutt and 
myself; and in a few months all mention of the matter 
in social circles was discontinued. 

In less than two years from this period the good citi- 
zens of Vicksburg and its vicinage were greatly shocked 
by a murder, which was ascertained to have oceurred upon 
the plantation cultivated by Cameron and McNutt, the 
latter of whom resided in the city. Cameron was reputed 
to have been slain by his own negroes, four of whom were 
apprehended and brought to town for trial. I was ap- 
pointed by the County Court of Warren county to con- 
duct the examination, under the supervision of the mem- 
bers of that tribunal, before which alone at that time 
slaves were triable: and I did so. The negroes were 
ably and skillfully defended; but the proof against them 
was clear and conelusive, and all of them put under trial 
were convicted, and thereafter hung. It appeared on the 
investigation that this murder had been concerted some 
time before: that tie; negroes implicated had assaulted 
Cameron with elubs as he passed early in the morning, on 
horseback, upon a narrow path, which ran along the verge 
of a thicket of brushwood, where the murderers lay con- 



202 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

cealed, and when he was proceeding from his own house 
to the field where his hands were at work. After he had 
been killed by repeated blows, the murderers attached 
large iron weights to the exanimate body, and sank it in 
the waters of the lake, which was not far distant. The 
horse of Cameron returning to his house riderless, some 
suspicion was at once aroused in regard to the fate of 
Cameron himself; but his death was not certainly found 
out to have occurred until a violent thunder-storm had so 
agitated the waters in which the body had been sub- 
merged that it rose to the surface, where it was discov- 
ered and brought to land. 

There was one of the murderers who was a very remark- 
able man. His name was Daniel. He was considerably 
above the ordinary stature, well shaped, and of a very 
commanding aspect and hearing. His conduct while on 
trial was singularly calm and decorous, and he was evi- 
dently without hope of acquittal from the very beginning 
of the investigation. A fact came to light in the course 
of the trial which attracted some attention at the time, 
and called forth also some comment. Daniel had been for 
many years a great favorite with his master, and it was 
said that the bosom of this negro was the dark repository 
of some secrets which Cameron had much interest in keep- 
ing concealed from the world. It was stated, and gener- 
ally believed too, that Cameron had at different times put 
to death seven or eight of his own slaves, whese bodies 
were suspected to have been interred in places of sepulture 
only known to Daniel and himself. Cameron had fallen 
out with his comrade in iniquity, who had been for many 
years his foreman — for some reason not fully developed in 
testimony; and with a view to gratifying the feelings of 
revenge which he cherished toward Daniel, he had re- 
tracted a singular indulgence which he had previously 
and for many years extended to him. This indulgence 
had relation to the two wives whom he had been allowed 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 203 

to marry and hold under marital authority after the 
fashion of Mormonism. Cameron had, a few weeks be- 
fore, abstracted from him one of these wives, and, as was 
said, the particular one to whom Daniel was most at- 
tached, and had solemnly declared to him that in future 
lie should be a practical monogamist. This treatment, it 
was shown, had been the main cause of Daniel's hostility 
to his once much-beloved lord and master. The murder- 
ers all died without murmur or complaint, except Daniel. 
He, after being carried back to jail, uttered many things, 
whether true or false, of a nature to give great umbrage 
to Mr. McNutt, and threatened, a day or two before his 
execution occurred, to develop on the scaffold, ere the 
fatal rope should do its office, circumstances calculated to 
throw the whole community into commotion. Mr. 
McXutt, being advised of these menaces, proceeded to the 
jail window, and made known to the prisoner that if lie 
continued to repeat the language which had previously 
issued from his lips lie would cause all his teeth to be 
drawn by a dentist. This silenced him for a time; but 
when he came upon the scaffold he attempted to address 
the assembled crowd in vindication of himself. This he 
was not permitted to do ; but when he began to speak, in 
accordance, as was well understood, with i:\ie directions of 
McXutt, the drum was most vociferously beaten, so as to 
drown the voice of the dying man, and he w r as thus con- 
fusedly 1 mrried into eternity. 

The community could have little or no regret that 
Cameron had ceased to live. He had been Ion ^ recoff- 
nized as a monster of cruelty, and had little social inter- 
course except with his own father-in-law — a blacksmith 
in the neighborhood by the name of Lewis — who had 
been himself twice tried for murder, within my own 
knowledge, and had barely escaped capital punishment. 
The last of the murders with which he had been charged 
was one inflicted upon a negro fellow, whom he had 



20 A CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

actually held upon the burning coals until the tire found 
its way to his vitals. I regret to say that in this part of 
the South, at the time referred to, juries were not at all 
accustomed to hang white men for murder done upon the 
sons and daughters of Africa. 

McXutt was not yet satiated with blood. He insti- 
tuted a prosecution in the Circuit Court of Warren 
county against a free man of color called Mercer Byrd, 
whom he charged in the indictment to have been acces- 
sory after the fact to Cameron's murder. It is certain 
that the watch of the murdered Cameron was found buried 
in Byrd's hen-house. The fact of its being deposited there 
was disclosed by one of those who had been executed, but 
he did not assert that the secreting of the watch in that 
place was at all known to Mercer Byrd. Mr. Prentiss, as 
I have heretofore incidentally mentioned, was employed to 
aid in the prosecution of Byrd, and for so doing he com- 
pelled McXutt to pay him S4,000 in cash, which was in 
truth but a reasonable fee. Notwithstanding Mr. Pren- 
tiss' high powers as an advocate Mercer Byrd was very 
near escaping. Two verdicts w T ere obtained against him, 
which the Supreme Court of the State afterward reversed 
on full argument. On the third trial he was again con- 
victed, and hung. 

I have heretofore stated that I was one of Byrd's legal 
defenders. The day before he was executed I was sent 
for to the jail where he was confined, in order that he 
might advise with me in regard to an exceedingly deli- 
cate matter. I lived eight miles from the place of his 
imprisonment, and was at the time very far from being 
well. I-went to see the unfortunate prisoner, notwith- 
standing*. On entering the cell I found much to awaken 
both surprise and gra iiication. It was reported that the 
prisoner had a day before professed to have experienced a 
change of heart, and it was said that he was not only pre- 
pared for death, but anxious to quit a world where he 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 205 

bad seen so little of unalloyed comfort and happiness. I 
was too unwell to sit up, and had, therefore, to recline 
upon the prison-floor, over which I had spread my cloak, 
while I listened to a paper called his confession, which lie 
had employed a gentleman of great respectability in the 
neighborhood to draw up tor him. It was, indeed, a most 
astonishing document, lie charged, upon the statements 
made to him by Daniel and his co-murderers, as well as 
upon certain pregnant facts known to him personally, 
that Cameron had been murdered at the instigation of 
MeXutt himself, and he pointed in support of his accusa- 
tion to the fact that McXutt was then in possession of 
Cameron's whole fortune (which he held in part as sur- 
viving partner) as well as of his wire, whom he had mar- 
ried in seven months after the death of Cameron — refer- 
ring impressively to the circumstance that this same mar- 
riage had been celebrated amid extraordinary festivities, 
extending through two entire days and nights. This 
scene was indeed a very severe trial to me, but I endeav- 
ored to go through it with dignity and composure. So 
soon as the reading of the confession was brought to an 
end I rose up from my prostrate position, and addressed 
my wretched client substantially thus: "Mercer Byrd, 
is it true that you have made your peace with Heaven, 
and are ready now to meet the great Judge of the quick 
and the dead in the world of spirits?" He answered: 
" It is true that I have experienced the forgiveness of my 
sins, and I am prepared to meet ray God face to face." 1 
then said : " Mercer Byrd, do you know that you are to 
die to-morrow morning at 11 o'clock?" He answered: 
"Certainly; I have no hope of escaping the death to 
which I am sentenced." I then said in continuation : 
" Mercer Byrd, are you willing to put at hazard your 
eternal salvation upon the truth of the statements con- 
tained in the paper just read ? " lie responded, most sol- 
emnly and emphatically, " I am." Upon which I ad- 



206 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

dressed him thus : u Mercer Byrd, I have served you long 
and faithfully ; I have received not a dollar for my ser- 
vices ; I expect nothing, and would have nothing, from 
you in the way of pecuniary recompense. I have now a 
single personal favor to ask of you: Let me suppress this 
confession; its publication can do no good, arid may do 
much harm. Leave the world, I heseech you, in peace 
with all mankind — even with those whom you believe to 
have persecuted you. ,, There was a serene smile upon the 
countenance of the dying man as he said: " Do as you 
please in the matter ; I am content/' I took my leave of 
him, and never saw him more. 

Mercer Byrd was a tall, fine-looking mulatto man, of 
much intelligence, and of excellent character before being 
charged with this offense. I had known him well for six 
or seven years, and had also been acquainted witli his 
family in North Alabama. I have heretofore stated that 
the late Judge Sharkey and the Hon. George Coalter as- 
sisted me in his defense. I will now add that both these 
gentlemen concurred with me in believing Byrd alto- 
gether innocent of the crime imputed to him. 

A year or two passed away after this catastrophe with- 
out any knowledge of the allegations contained in Byrd's 
confession being obtained by the community generally, 
though the nature and extent of these allegations were 
known to about a dozen persons, some of whom are yet 
alive. Mr. McNutt, having become then a wealthy man, 
aspired to a seat in the Senate of Mississippi. The Demo- 
crats of the State were then struggling hard to defeat the 
celebrated George Poindexter in his effort to be re-elected 
to the United States Senate, where his acrimonious oppo- 
sition to General Jackson's administration bad given 
much offense to the adherents of this loved and honored 
political chief. MclSTutt was himself a Democrat, while a 
very large majority of the voters of Warren county were 
Whigs. The Whig candidate in that county for the State 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 207 

Senate was irreconcilably opposed to Poindexter's re-elec- 
tion. So McNutt, when he became a candidate, pledged 
himself to vote for Poindexter's re-election if he himself 
should be elected to the position which he sought. The 
desired result was in this way easily enough achieved, and 
during the next winter MeNutt was seated in the State 
Senate, where, taking a very extreme part against the 
1 tanks of the State, to many of which he was himself a 
large debtor, he managed to procure a nomination for 
the office of Governor at the hands of some dozen of his 
legislative associates of the ultra anti-hank stamp, and 
took the field as a candidate accordingly. There were 
then many Democrats in Mississippi (including myself) 
who thought that the elevation of Mr. McNutt to the 
office of Governor of the State, notwithstanding the fact 
that he had recently displayed much more of a certain 
sort of ability than anyone had previously suspected him 
of possessing, would be productive of much evil in various 
ways, and would especially give encouragement to a low 
and huckstering demagogism which was then beginning 
to display itself in a particularly menacing and disgust- 
ing form. So we urged that able, high-toned, and truly 
Roman-like personage, Major Benjamin W. Edwards, 
(nephew to the worthy personage of the same name who 
was the early protector and patriot of the celebrated Wil- 
liam Wirt, and who so long represented in the Legisla- 
ture of Maryland the adjoining county of Montgomery,) 
to take the field against him. Major Edwards reluctantly 
consented ; so that there were now in the arena four can- 
didates for the office of Governor, Mr. MaN"utt, Major 
Edwards, Colonel John A. Grimball, and Dr. Jacob B. 
Morgan, two Whigs and two Democrats. Major Ed- 
wards unfortunately died in the midst of the canvass, and 
1 was called upon to deliver his funeral eulogy in the town 
of Clinton in the sunnier of 1837. MoXutt was afterward 
elected by a mere plurality of popular votes. 



208 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

In the midst of that gubernatorial canvass, in which I 
was really taking no very active part, MeNUtt went 
through the State making characteristic speeches every- 
where, and succeeded in deluding many as to his true 
character and purposes. A few days before he reached 
the vicinage of the State capital, where I then resided, 1 
learned with some surprise and regret that he had more 
than once mentioned my own name very disrespectfully 
and unkindly in several of his addresses to the people, and 
that he had charged me with being influenced by motives 
in opposing him of which he well knew me to be utterly 
incapable. I determined to put an end to this sort of as- 
sailment without delay; and with this view I proceeded 
to the town of Brandon, distant from Jackson only ten 
miles, where he was expected to speak, for the purpose of 
confronting him. So soon as we met at the hotel of the 
village, in presence of a large crowd, I demanded of him, 
in a calm and courteous manner, whether he had used the 
injurious language in relation to myself and my public 
conduct which had been reported to me. With much 
confusion and embarrassment, he confessed that he had. 
I then demanded tlyxt he should make a formal retraxit of 
all that he had said of me of a disrespectful nature in 
hearing of those who were them assembling to hear him. 
This he refused to do. I then turned to him and said : 
ct Sir, you know well that I have never been your enemy. 
For some years past there lias been no familiarity between 
us. I have openly but respectfully opposed your election 
to the office of Governor, of which I well know you to be 
altogether unworthy. You have been guilty of traducing 
my character when I was not present to defend it. I 
have now demanded justice at your hands. This you re- 
fuse to afford. Xo one could know better than I do that 
you do not hold yourself responsible to the laws of 1101101'. 
No recourse now is left me but one. 1 will not dishonor 
myself by applying to you language of personal denuncia- 



CASKKT OF KKMTNISOKNOES. 20$ 

tion, which, however merited by you, 1 could not use 
without some loss of self-respect. I now notify you, there- 
fore, in presence of this multitude, that you have been en- 
gaged for the last two or three weeks in calumniating a 
man who has, without your knowing it, been heretofore 
your best benefactor.'' He looked very much surprised. 
I then gave an account of the confession made by Mercer 
Byrd ; of my agency in preventing the publication of the 
charges contained in it, and said : " Now, sir, you plainly 
perceive that I have heretofore saved you from being 
placed before the public in an attitude which could not 
hut have given you great and permanent annoj^ance. I 
do not even now say that I am satisfied of your guilt ; for 
God knows that T have been struggling for years to avoid 
considering you so bad a man as the dying Byrd charged 
you with being; hut I do now assert, what you too must 
feel to be true, that had I not interposed, live years ago, 
to prevent the publication of that same confession, you 
would never have been able to occupy a seat in the Legis- 
lature of the State, or have had the presumption now to 
[•resent yourself as a candidate for the office of Governor. 
I feel now compelled to go a little further, and say to you 
that if you mention my name in your speech to-day I will 
expose you at once to public infamy ; and that if you fail 
to revoke this day all the unjust aspersions which you 
have heretofore heaped upon me, at your meeting in the 
city of Jackson to-morrow I will be present, and then re- 
quite you in full for all your unprovoked attempts to in- 
jure me." He burst into tears and appealed to those pres- 
ent for sympathy, but received none. That day he spoke, 
and made no mention of my name. I went to the old 
capitul building in the city of Jackson, next day, to meet 
him in discussion, as I had threatened to do. He came to 
the back part of the building, and looked through the 
window to sec who was present, and, finding that I had 
14b 



21U CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

been as good as my promise, he silently retired. Under 
these circumstances I brought this affair to a termination 
by publishing all the preceding facts in the newspaper- 
called the Mississippian, in a tile of which my long and 
very denunciatory address to the people of Mississippi may 
be yet seen, accompanied with comments such as I shall 
nut now recite. 

in the office of Governor it is but just to say that 
MeNutt got along tolerably well, though he was hut a 
poor representative of the virtue and refinement of the 
oeople over whose civic concerns he presided. A year or 
two after his course of gubernatorial services had drawn 
to an end he formally announced himself as a candidate 
for the position of United States Senator, and sent forth 
printed handbills making known the times and places 
where he would address his fellow-citizens in support of 
his claims to be chosen Senator, as the successor of Mr. 
John Henderson, whose official term was just about expir- 
ing. This announcement of Mr. McXutt as a Senatorial 
candidate gave a good deal of uneasiness to several gentle- 
men who were then already known to desire the Senato- 
rial position, among whom were John A. Quitman, Al- 
bert G. Brown, Jacob Tbompson, and William M. Gwin, 
all of whom were men of prominence and of great and 
ascertained popularity. The Senatorial candidacy of 
McXutt was productive of particular solicitude also in 
the minds of some by reason of the fact that he openly 
proclaimed his determination to conrine himself in the po 
litical canvass which lie was about to commence to dis- 
cussing the question of repudiating what were known as 
the Union Bank bonds. This course on the part of Gov- 
ernor McNutt was the more surprising and disgraceful 
because of the fact that he had himself imparted dignity 
to these very bonds by subscribing them as Governor, and 
attaching to them the great seal of the State. I was 



rASKKT OF REMINISCENCES. 211 

really at this time only u a looker-on in Vieime," and was 
quietly pursuing my profession, having no earthly desire 
for political promotion of any kind. But this quiet and 
agreeable life I was not permitted to enjoy, for one day, 
when proceeding to my own home in the city of Jackson, 
General Quitman came to me and said that he had just 
been consulting several gentlemen who were, as he was, 
adverse to the Senatorial aspirations of Governor McNutt, 
in regard to the means of defeating him, and that all of 
them had come to the conclusion that the only way of ac- 
complishing this object was to get some suitable person to 
attend upon his proposed journeys through the State, and 
respond to all his speeches. He added, in a manner very 
Mattering, that I had been unanimously selected as the 
champion who was to go forth to do battle against this 
modern Samson Agonistes. I did not agree with these 
gentlemen as to the propriety of my assuming the per- 
formance of this duty, and at first positively declined it, 
adding that my personal relations with McNutt were 
such as would make it particularly disagreeable to me to 
pursue him thorough the State in the manner proposed. 
" Besides," (as I said to General Quitman when he was 
urging this task upon me,) '' recollect that I have already 
openly declared you to be my choice for United States 
Senator; is there not danger that it I go forth against 
McXutt, and succeed in securing his defeat, the members 
of the Legislature, when that body shall assemble next 
winter, grateful as they will naturally be to the performer 
of such a service, may conclude to take me up, whether I 
wish it or not, and send me to the Senate instead of send- 
ing yourself, as I hope that they will? I warn you before- 
hand, my excellent friend, of the impending danger; I 
shall certainly not seek the place myself, either directly or 
indirectly ; wwy day of the canvass [ shall admit my pre- 
ference for you, ami assign as good reasons as \ can for 



£12 GASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

this preference ; every day I shall defend yourself, Gov- 
ernor Brown, Dr. Gvvin, and Mr. Thompson against 
McNutt's assaults; every day I shall carry the war into 
Africa, also with what force and skill I may possess; but 
T tell you again, very solemnly, that if you persist in forc- 
ing me into this painful and arduous struggle the proba- 
bility is that L may myself be chosen Senator." As this 
enterprise was pressed upon my attention, day after day, 
and I may well say hour after hour, at length I concluded 
to undertake it. And here occurs to me a sentence or two 
from an interesting work that I have just read, which 
runs thus: ,k Every lite as it unrolls has its turning-points, 
its critical moments. Among these turning-points there 
is often one that constitutes the crisfs of being. School, 
college, busiuess, friendship, love, accidents, deaths, may 
all prove such to us. Xone the less are our schemes, our 
chances, or our mistakes and disappointments. There 
comes also a great spiritual crisis to which ordinary life 
is related, either as the preparation or the result." So it 
seems to me now to have been with myself in this case. T 
followed Governor McXutt from county to county 
through the whole State of Mississippi, and met him be- 
fore the people. Every day he assaulted, with the utmost 
fierceness, Quitman, Brown, Thompson, Gwin, and their 
prominent friends in the different parts of the State, de- 
nouncing the gentlemen named as " Sleepies," who did 
not dare to come out to meet him in open fight, but who 
expected quietly to clutch the Senatorial prize at the end 
of the conflict, tie every day compared himself to some 
skillful snake-killer with his flail, striking about him 
on all sides in the thick grass, with a hope of killing the 
serpents that he knew to be nestling therein. Every day 
did I defend these gentlemen and their absent friends 
with what ability 1 possessed, and I had the better op- 
portunity to do so in consequence of the fact that Mi-. 



(\SKKT OF KKMINISCKNCKS. 218 

MeNutt constantly acknowledged me to be an excellenl 
Democrat, with whom he wished to have no collision, 
while he charged those who came under his chastising 
scourge with being Whigs in disguise, or at least mere 
pseudo-Democrats. Eie spoke every day about three 
hours, and then retired precipitately from the rostrum and 
the place of meeting, and moved on to the next appoint- 
ment. Every day, so soon as he closed his long-winded 
harangue, I spoke for about thirty minutes, and went on 
in pursuit of him. We never interchanged a syllable dur- 
ing the whole canvass. Sometimes we put up at the same 
hotel, and occasionally were even lodged in the same room. 
I suppose that we must have severally delivered at least 
one hundred speeches. Governor MeNutt finally trans- 
formed his accustomed speech into a dream or vision, as 
he used to call it, which he took occasion to add to and 
embellish with new incidents from day to day, until it 
really became quite a ludicrous melange, and all at the ex- 
pense of the " sleepy " candidates for the Senate. As he 
poured forth mainly the same utterances on each succes- 
sive occasion of speaking, the colored boy, William, who 
drove my buggy, managed to get it by heart, and he re- 
peated it with well-mimicked gestures and intonation to 
large crowds, whom he never tailed to convulse with 
laughter. 

At last the struggle closed. Then it became evident to 
all that MeNutt could not possibly be elected. The peo- 
ple agreed with me that it was not proper to send him to 
the United States Senate, as a reward for murdering his 
own offspring — the Union Bank bonds. He had man- 
aged so deeply to incense all the other candidates and 
their friends by his continued abuse of them that they 
would have preferred to aid in the election of any man 
whatever in preference to this most persevering tormentor. 
1 had attacked no one during the whole struggle save 



214 CASKET OF KEMJNISCENCES. 

Mc^sutt himself. The result, therefore, was not at all to 
be wondered at. When the Legislative Democratic cau- 
cus met in ihe city of Jackson, in the succeeding Janu- 
ary, MoNatt got on the first ballot twenty votes; (this 
number was never increased on any succeeding ballot;) I 
received eighteen votes; Quit man, Thompson, and Brown 
each less than this number. Gwin had withdrawn be. 
fore the balloting commenced. My number of votes was 
increased on every fresh ballot, until at last I received 
every Democratic vote in the Legislature save one. In a 
few days thereafter I was chosen Senator in due form, and 
removed to a field of action where I should rejoice to 
know that my labors were at all beneficial to my country 
and the cause of constitutional liberty. 

This first attempt in Mississippi to obtain popular ap- 
proval of the fearful dogma of repudiation was indeed 
signally unsuccessful. But it is due to the truth of his- 
tory to confess that the experiment thus essayed by Mr. 
McNutt has been much more successful since when con- 
ducted by more subtle and persevering ministers of mis- 
chief, who in 1858 were able at last, under the counsel 
and direction of Mr. Jefferson Davis, to impress upon 
the once unstained escutcheon of a gallant and noble Com- 
monwealth a blot of infamy that all the waters of ocean 
can not wash away, and which it is not in the power of 
all-consuming time itself completely to obliterate. 

The wretched McNutt, always held to be unconquera- 
ble before this memorable struggle, found it difficult to 
bear up under a result which stood accompanied with cir- 
cumstances so well calculated to gall his sensibilities and 
mortify his pride. Had any man been elected save him 
who had publicly divulged the contents of that confession 
of Mercer Byrd the discredit reflected upon him would 
not have been altogether so intolerable. He was exceed- 
ingly indisposed for a few days, afterward got a little bet- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 2 I .S 

ter, but was never the same confident and blustering dema- 
gogue he had previously been. He died about two years 
after, and the "ruling passion" being with him also 
" strong in death,*' he talked politics to the last, calling out, 
as I have been told, in his last moments, fin his favorite 
newspaper, the Mississipian. 

I have all the more readily consented to recite the par- 
ticulars above set forth by reason of the fact that I have 
thought that in the career of this remarkable man the 
seeds of wholesome moral instruction might be discerned, 
and that the disappointments which marked the latter 
years of his life may have a. salutary influence on those 
of the rising generation who shall choose to meditate upon 
them. There are certain names which I hope will remain 
forever imbedded in the recollection of our mercurial, but 
high-minded, Southern people, as warnings against the ex- 
ceeding unprofitableness of demagogism, and thefeaifn' 
dangers which wait upon its prevalence. Tt is really to be 
much desired, in my opinion, that the examples of Alex- 
ander G. McNutt, of Jefferson Davis, and of Andrew 
Johnson, with the self-destructive results of an unscrupu- 
lous and all-grasping ambition, should he handed down to 
the latest posterity. 



216 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



REMINISCENCE No. XXII. 

HON. ROBERT J. WALKER — OEORGE POIXDKXTER AND JACKSON'S 
ADMINISTRATION — A WORTHY TRIBUTE TO W. W. CORCORAN. 

I ought, perhaps, long since to have performed the task 
upon which I am now entering. To no one outside of his 
own family circle was the late Robert J. Walker better 
known than to the author of the present reminiscence. 
My first acquaintance with him was formed in the winter 
of 1830-'31. He was then the most prominent member 
of the bar in the city of Natchez, where he had been a 
resident for some tour or five years. He was a native of 
Pennsylvania, had graduated, as I have heard him say, 
as a doctor of medicine anterior to his commencement ot 
the study of law, and before he located in Mississippi he 
had given much attention to the civil as well as to the 
common law, and was said by those quite competent to 
judge of this matter to be exceedingly well versed in both 
these branches of the jurisprudential science. Mr. Walker 
found, when he became established in Natchez, his amia- 
ble and accomplished brother, Duncan Walker, in full 
practice, and he had an opportunity afforded him at once 
of appearing as an advocate in many cases of the greatest 
magnitude and difficulty, and in the argument of these 
soon became recognized as a lawyer of eminent learning 
and ability. In a year or two after the opening of his 
forensic career in Natchez three very distinguished mem- 
bers of the bar of that city died: Mr. Griffith, Thomas B. 
Reed, and Robert II. Adams. The two last became well 
known as members of the National Senate. Mr. Reed 
was a Iventuckian by birth, was a man of m m com u Hid- 
ing person, and was undoubtedly a man of much ability 



GASKET OF REMINISCENCES. id 7 

and learning, but he was not remarkable for brilliancy as 
a speaker or for scholastic attainments. Robert II. Adams 
was born in the county of Rockbridge and State of Vir- 
ginia; he was a cooper by trade, and had worked at this 
occupation for several years before commencing the study 
of the law. lie located, in the days of his early manhood, 
in the city of Knoxville, Tenn., where he very soon rose 1 
to distinction. He afterward removed to the city of Nash- 
ville, hut did not remain there long before he determined 
to migrate to Natchez, where, in five or six years, lie 
became recognized as a well-informed and industrious 
barrister, and a bold, earnest, and energetic speaker. Mr. 
Adams and Mr. Walker were very intimate friends, and 
a year or two before the decease of the former these two 
gentlemen had entered into an agreement to practice law 
in partnership in the city of New Orleans, which they 
were prevented from doing alone by Mr. Adams' sudden 
and unexpected election to the United States Semite about 
twelve months before his demise. 

Previous to Mr. Walker's emigration from his native 
State lie had gained some prominence as a politician, and 
he claimed, no doubt rightfully, the credit of having made 
the first speech in support of General Jackson for the 
!> idency, some time during the year 1824. 

adieu the dogma .of nullification was suddenly broached 
by the politicians of South Carolina in 1832, Mr. Walker 
came forth at once, in the public newspapers and elsewhere, 
as the stern and uncompromising supporter of General 
.Jackson's famous Union proclamation, and 1 remember 
him then to have sent forth one of the ablest and most 
eioquenl addresses in support of the cause which he had 
espoused that \ have ever had an opportunity of reading. 
When, afterward, the supporters of General Jackson's 
administration in the State of Mississippi made up their 
minds to do all that might lie in their power to defeat the 



218 CASKET OF REMINISCENCKS. 

re-election to the National Senate of the celebrated Greorge 
Poindexter, an opportunity was presented to Mr. Walker 
of heading this important mo verm which lie did with 
singular address and effective there are some curious 

particulars connected with th -riod of the history of 

Mississippi which many still surviving in that State, no 
doubt, yet bear in vivid recollection. The enemies of the 
Jackson administration tendered to Mr. Poindexter a 
series of public banquets, at which he was expected to 
address those who might attend in vindication of his own 
course and in fierce assailment, both of General Jackson 
and the measures of Government which he had at that 
time recommended. One of these banquets was to be 
spread in the village of Raymond, then and now the seat 
of justice of the county of Hinds. Some of my political 
friends had demanded ot me that 1 should attend at Ray- 
mond on the day tixed for the entertainment mentioned, 
and that L should at the close of Mr. Poindexter's address 
proceed to respond thereto, at the court-house, which was 
not far distant from the stand erected for the occupancy 
of this personage. This I had consented to do, when 
suddenly I received a letter from my friend, Mr. Walker, 
calling my attention to a vevy spiteful and unjustifiable 
attack made by Mr. Poindexter in the National Senate 
upon his personal and political character, and urging me 
at the same time to allow him to take my place on the 
occasion just referred to as the answerer of Mr. Poindex- 
ter's anticipated speech. To this application I promptly 
acceded, and invited Mr. Walker to come up from Natchez 
immediately for the purpose of performing this duty of 
patriotism, and of aiding the friends of the Administra- 
tion in the fierce and difficult political struggle which 
was then before us. 

When the day of conflict came, the Democrats of the 
county attended in great numbers. Mr. Poindexter made 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 219 

his expected speech, which was evidently very coldly 
received by most of those present ; after which I ascended 
a table not far distant from the stand from which he had 
held forth, and announced 1 hat Robert J. Walker, of 
Natchez, who was then present, would immediately reply 
to the address just made, at the court-house, and invited 
all in attendance to accompany me thither, which most of 
them did. Mr. Walker, on being introduced to the crowd 
assembled, rose and delivered one of the most powerful 
political speeches I ever listened to, and I immediately 
afterward offered a resolution inviting him to become a 
Senatorial candidate in opposition to Mr. Poindexter, 
which he consented to do This speech of Mr. Walker 
was promptly published in every part of the State, and 
produced a most marked effect everywhere. In a week 
or two this gentleman commenced a regular canvass of 
the State, and spoke to large audiences in almost ovary 
county of Mississippi, receiving nearly everywhere the 
niost decided tokens of popular approval. Almost av^vy 
day he was assailed by some anti-Jackson speaker, and on 
eveiw such occasion I defended him with such ability as 
I possessed. The struggle was protracted, from various 
causes, for nearly two years, when at last Mr. Poindexter 
was defeated and Mr. Walker returned to the Senate in 
his place. His career in this illustrious body was one of 
great distinction, with the leading scenes of which the 
whole country is familiar. His Senatorial speeches, pub- 
lished at the time of their delivery in t he Congressional 
Globe, were evincive of great ability and industry, and 
would have done credit, as I think, to almost any man 
that the country has produced. In legal learning, in 
general literary attainments, in scholastic erudition, and 
in a knowledge of all the more useful branches of science, 
there were bul few of his cofemporaries who could have 
safely stood comparison with him. He was a warm-hearted, 



220 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

truthful, and courageous gentleman, a tender and devoted 
husband, a dutiful and respectful son, and a most affec- 
tionate and pains-taking father. In friendship he was 
disinterested, faithful, and self-sacrificing. In all the 
duties of a high-toned and expanded patriotism no man 
lias ever surpassed him. Man}' of the most pleasant days 
of my past life were spent in social intercourse with him, 
and it is exceedingly gratifying to me now to remember 
that I never had the least reason either to distrust his 
friendly regard for me or to question his perfect upright- 
ness and honor. 

Mr. Walker acquired a great and solid reputation as 
Secretary of the Treasury during Mr. Polk's administra- 
tion, and his management of the financial concerns of the 
Republic during the interesting and trying period of the 
Mexican war added greatly to his fame as n statesman, 
and established in his favor a permanent claim to the 
admiration and gratitude of his countrymen. 

Mr. Walker participated vary conspicuously in all the 
measures leading; to the recognition of Texas as an inde- 
pendent State, and to her subsequent admission into the 
Federal Union: and when the capital of the Mexican 
Republic was in possession of our invading army, under 
General Scott, he openly expressed the opinion that the 
wisest policy which could then he adopted by our own 
Government would be at once to issue a formal proclama- 
tion of conquest, applicable to the whole Mexican domain, 
to be speedily followed up by measures looking to the 
opening of that attractive region to our own enterprising 
countrymen, the establishment of post offices and post 
roads, the introduction of railways, and the organization 
of lines of telegraphic communication: l^y which means 
lie insisted all Mexico would be in a few years completely 
Americanized, and placed for the first time in her history 
under the control of a sound and Stable government, and 



tj \skkt OF R-EMlNISOEKCBSi ±1\ 

cease to be the theater of bloody and exhausting wars, 
and the dismal abiding-place of civil disorder and social 
anarchy. Mr. Walker's political sagacity and foresight 
were sometimes displayed in a truly wonderful manner, 
and, from my knowledge of his temper and general views, 
[ have no hesitation in declaring the opinion that, were 
he now living he would still be, as he ever was, an ardent 
advocate for the extension, by all legitimate and lawful 
means, of our admirable civil institutions over all North 
America. Had his life been prolonged up to the present 
moment he would, I am certain, have been among the 
foremost in urging the early acquisition of Cuba, San 
Domingo, .Jamaica, Porto Rico, and all the other islands 
belonging to the West [ndia group and washed by the 
waters of the Gulf of Mexico. He would, I doubt not, 
have seen that the acquisition of these islands has been 
rendered doubly desirable in the last few years by the 
recent amendments of the Federal Constitution, since it is 
most apparent that under the fostering protection of these 
the colored inhabitants o\' that region would be given a 
sure guarantee for the perpetual enjoyment of liberty and 
a complete equality of civil rights, such as now so happily 
exists in our own Republic. 

Those who are familiar with the intimate relations of 
various kinds subsisting for many years between Robert 
J. Walker and another worthy citizen of this vicinage 
will not feel any surprise at my here subjoining a very 
brief notice of one whom L have more or less known for 
the last fifty years, and for whose character, both public 
and private, L have cherished a constantly-increasing 
respect since the year 1817. [ do not fear being charged 
with extravagance in any respectable quarter when T 
declare that I know of no man now living upon this con- 
tinent more deserving to be loved and respected as a wise 
and munificent public benefactor, and as a humane and 



222 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES, 

judicious bestower of charity, in the broadest and most 
comprehensive meaning of that word, than our jet sur- 
viving neighbor and fellow-citizen, William Wilson Cor- 
coran. A purer, kinder, or more public-spirited man I 
have never known ; and if all the great capitalists that 
our country contains could but be persuaded to imitate 
his noble example our Republic would soon become a 
paradise, and the possession of wealth, so far from attract- 
ing envy, as it is so often known to do, and begetting 
enmity, would be thenceforth recognized, and justly, as 
only the enjoyment of the high and sacred privilege of 
doing good, of relieving the manifold distresses of human 
kind, and of extending the happiness of our fellow crea- 
tures wheresoever they may be found. This would confer 
more real honor than all the titles of nobility that the 
aristocrats of the world have been able to invent, and be 
the source of more true glory than even the winners of 
great battles have ever been able to achieve. 

There is no danger that the generations of posterity 
will forget the numerous but unostentatious charities 
which the heart of Mr. Corcoran has prompted and his 
sound and discriminating intellect has put in operation. 
Numerous gifted pens, I am glad to know, have been 
already occupied in the specification of his benefactions, 
and in the delineation of his social and domestic virtues, 
and there are solid and enduring monuments in our midst, 
and in almost every corner of this District, which will 
preserve his fame as a philanthropist and as a munificent 
patron of the arts for a thousand generations to come. 
So long ;is the national capital shall continue to stand as 
a token of the power and glory of this unequaled Republic, 
or the lordly Potomac be seen to wash the foot of that 
beautiful hill which it occupies and adorns, will the warm- 
hearted men and women of the land be heard to breathe 
forth accents of praise and gratitude in honor of one to 



CASKET OF REMIMSOKNCt>. 22-i 

whom, perhaps, with more justice might be applied than 

to any other man now treading the soil of this continent , 
the glowing and beautiful lines of the renowned moral 
poet of England, who thus sung, nearly two centuries ago. 
in praise of one of his own countrymen: 

But all our praises why should lords engross? 

liise, honest muse ! and sing "The Man'of Ross ! " 

Pleased Vaga echoes through her winding hound-. 

And rapid Severn hoarse applause resounds. 

Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow? 

From the dry rock who hade the waters flow? 

Not to the skies in useless columns toss'd, 

Or in proud tails magnificently lost, 

But clear and artless pouring through the plain, 

Health to the sick, and solace to the swain. 

Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows? 

Whose seats the weary traveler repose? 

Who taught that heaven-directed spire to rise? 

"The Man of Ross, " each lisping babe replies. 

Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread ! 

"The Man of Ross" divides the weekly bread ! 

He feeds yon almshouse, neat, but void of state, 

Where age mul want sit smiling at Ike gate: 

Him, portioned maids, apprenticed orphans blessed, 

The young who labor, and the old who rest. 

Is any sick? "The Man of Ross " relieves, 

Prescribes, attends, the med'eine makes and gives. 

Is there a variance? enter but this door, 

Baulked are the courts, and content is no more 

Despairing quacks with curses fled the place 

And vile attorneys, now a useless race. 



224 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



REMINISCENCE No. XXIII. 

GOVERNOR BROWNLOW — MR. BENJAMIN. 

In the same desultory or " carptim " manner, as Sallus- 
tius Crispns would call it, I proceed farther to notice the 
men and things which have been heretofore present to my 
experience. 

There is an individual living in Knoxville, Tenn., 
whom I have long and familiarly known. He and I have 
never belonged to the same political party, and there are, 
doubtless, many questions now more or less agitating 
the public mind upon which we are not precisely in 
harmony. But the mere ties of party I have never held 
to be of equal dignity with the obligations ot moral duty, 
and there has never been, and I trust there never will be, 
a time when I shall take it for granted that, all who 
ao-ree with me in political sentiment are necessarily honest 
and patriotic, and those who do not thus agree with me 
are knaves and enemies to the cause of freedom. [ have 
lived long enough to find out that there are good and bad 
men of all parties and of all sects of religion under the sun, 
and that there are not two greater foes to virtue and the 
general well-being of society than the prejudice engendered 
by extreme political partisanship and the unreasoning 
religious bigotry which damns without mercy all the 
members of all Christian sects whatever who chance to 
dissent either in regard to doctrinal principles or church 
ceremonials from the particular denomination with which 
they may have associated themselves. Et is currently as- 
serted among certain rather superficial persons that the 
existence of party dissensions in a republic like our own 
is a sort of necessary evil. I have never so thought. 



OASKKl OP REMINISCENCES. 225 

though I am quite aware that a number of causes may be 
of power to produce soms contrariety of views upon 
almost any question which could be mentioned. In such 
a high condition of social culture as it is at least easy to 
imagine, and in the absence of all those demoralizing in- 
fluences which war of every kind is sure to call into 
being, I have ever believed that though absolute uniform- 
ity of sentiment is not to be confidently anticipated, yet 
that everything in the form of an over-close party 
organization, accompanied as it must ever be by the 
blind and barbarizing antagonisms of faction— selfishly and 
unscrupulously seeking the spoils of office, or to lay hold 
upon the exterior symbols of political power in order to 
the gratification of a low and huckstering ambition — 
might as easily be avoided as many other mischiefs which 
are known to vanish as society advances in refinement and 
intelligence. I am yet to witness or to hear of the firs*" 
signal party triumph that was not in the sequel marked 
with gross abuses of power and with deeds of every de- 
scription calculated to awaken feelings of horror and 
disgust in upright and elevate 1 minds; and he has surely 
read the pages of history with little profit; who is not 
aware that all great and widely beneficial reforms in 
government and laws have been brought about, not by 
theexclusive instrumentality of any one political faction, 
fervidly exultant over some recently-won party victory, 
but by the cool and steady co-operation of liberal-minded 
and enlightened patriots, who, without regard to existing 
party designations, have been able to rise up for the time 
above the delusory and fatal guidance of extreme party 
zealotry, and the trickish subtleties of a low-bred, vulgar, 
and mischief-spreading demagoguism. It was the sage 
and brotherly union of highly-endowed patriotic tories 
with persons of a similar moral stamp, previously recog- 
nized as belonging to the Whig ranks, to which Eng- 
15k 



'226 C \SKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

land is undeniably indebted for the civic revolution of 
168S, the more recent repeal of the corn laws, for Catholic 
emancipation, and for all the invaluable ameliorations 
which have been effected in our own time in her criminal 
code and in her rules of judicial procedure. So in our 
own country, even our intelligent schoolboys know that 
similar results were brought about hy almost precisely 
similar means in 1819, in 1831, in 1850, and in 1861, or 
rather between that noted year and the year 1865. How 
how much in error, then, must those be who seek to per- 
petuate enmities of a partisan cast for purposes altogether 
distinct from the real w elfare of the Eepublic, or who 
struggle to keep in existence the mere hull of a political 
party after all the great ends of its original mission have 
been fully accomplished, and when even its distinctive 
corporate cognomen has become suggestive only of past 
transactions, of a comparatively recent date, deeply dishon- 
oring to all directly concerned therein, and little less dis- 
creditable to those who have thoughtlessly yielded their 
momentary countenance and support to these proceedings 
while in process of enactment, and to their known projec- 
tors or instigators. 

These general remarks, which may seem at first to some 
to be a little out of place here, will at least serve as an in- 
troduction to what I have to say in reference to the 
worthy citizen of my own State who has been already al- 
luded to. 

The Hon. William G. Brownlow is undoubtedly one of 
the most marked and peculiar characters of the present 
age. I speak of what I am sure I know perfectly when I 
assert that there is not a man to lie found on the terra 
Jirma of America more honest, more truthful, or kinder 
hearted than the personage just mentioned. Little do 
they know of the graces which adorn his character, or of 
the generous qualities of his nature, who judge of him 



Casket of reminiscences. --21 

alone by the terrible fill mi nations which sometimes are 

seen to flash from his gifted and all-excoriating pen. He 
is certainly the most potential castigator of impertinence 
or tolly that the country now knows, and he who ventures 
to assail him had far better ronse the fury of the fret- 
ted porcupine. It is certain that all who are ambitions 
'of having collision with him would act with commenda- 
ble prudence, ere they do so, to put there own house in 
order; for nothing is more certain than if they have left a 
cranny open anywhere he will find it out and penetrate 
it, and leave such marks of his destructive access as neither 
time nor the circumstances of personal good fortune will 
have power to obliterate. Mr. Brownlow is no longer a 
speaker of speeches in the accustomed sense of that word ; 
but what he writes of men and things is always read, and 
he may be well said to possess in an eminent degree that 
sort of eloquence which was attributed to one of old, who 
was said "to leave stings in the minds of iiis hearers." 
His mind is by nature vigorous, agile, and astute to a de- 
gree unsurpassed by any of his cotemporaries. He well 
understands the genus homo, both in the abstract and in the 
concrete; yet lie is as tar from everything approaching to 
misanthropy as any human being could possibly be. He 
possesses, and in a form perfectly ready for immediate use, 
the most particular and precise knowledge of the charac- 
ter and history of every man of the least note in this 
country that the last half century has brought to view. 
He is, in as high a degree as any man I have at any time 
known, an inflexible devotee to principle, though he is 
not weak enough to pride himself upon having been abso- 
lutely consistent in regard to mere trivialities, or of those 
of a non-essential character. He has unquestionably com- 
mitted errors, and these, when he has found them out, he 
has been always both brave and honest enough to confess. 
He is certainly ever true to the monitions of his own con- 



'12H casket oi? hkminisckS'oe&. 

science, and he would therefore !>e indeed a harsh and 
illiberal critic who would not make prompt allowance for 
mistakes committed by such an individual. He was, 
some years ago, one of the boldest and most powerful 
champions and defenders that the slaveholding interest of 
the South has ever yet boasted, and so he continued to be 
as long as he regarded the attacks made upon that sys- 
tem as instigated by a blind and unreasoning fanaticism, 
or as originating in demagoguical ambition, seeking local 
popularity and political advancement at the expense of 
the peace and happiness of the Republic. When he after- 
ward found the slaveholding system of the South seized 
upon by the hare-brained fanatics of the sunny region in 
which he himself resided, for the purpose of bursting 
asunder the bonds of the Union and building up for the 
benefit of a few designing aspirants a separate and inde- 
pendent republic — soon to eventuate, if allowed to have 
its natural progress, in an irresponsible military despo- 
tism — he promptly armed himself for this new contest, 
and eventually consented to the sacrifice of the system 
which he had once so eloquently and heroically defended, 
upon the altar of his country's tranquillity and repose. In 
the early period of the recent struggle for the establish- 
ment of a Southern Confederacy he was made the vic- 
tim of lawless violence under the special inspiration of 
the War Department at Richmond, in which the infamous 
Judah P. Benjamin then presided. lie was ruthlessly 
rorn from the society of his family, deprived of his liberty, 
and subjected to all sorts of indignities on account of his 
daring to give free and courteous expression to his opin- 
ions as a lover of the Union and as a veritable self-devot- 
ing patriot. Such was the cruel maltreatment which he 
received that his physical constitution was completely 
broken down, and his bodily health irretrievably ruined. 
It is one of the most gratifying reminiscences of my life 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 2 W 21> 

that, thoagh myself inveigled at the time in the Confed- 
erate meshes, I openly and earnestly protested against this 
unjust and ruffianly harrassment of one whom I greatly 
loved and honored, despite our differences of opinion 
touching 1 the matters then in progress, [t is almost equally 
gratifying to me to know that when 1 was in a state of 
constrained exile upon a foreign shore Mr. Brownlow's 
most strenuous efforts in my behalf were made without 
my solicitation, and even without my knowledge. I am 
confident that no suffering Confederate in Tennessee ever 
asked Mr. Browulow's kindly interposition in his own 
behalf with the Government at Washington who was re- 
fused it. I remember that in the very summer of my own 
return home, that is to say, in 1865,1 drew up a petition, 
addressed to the President of the United States, praying 
the liberation of Jeff. Davis and Alexander Stephens from 
imprisonment. I got it subscribed by a number of citi- 
zens, and took it to Mr. Brownlow, then Governor of 
Tennessee, for his signature. 

He received me very graciously; said the question was 
one of some delicacy and perplexity, and he would, with 
my consent, take my petition under consideration for a 
few days, in his own characteristic style saying: '* I shall 
have to fast and pray over this application ; yes, Governor, 
T shall have to fast and pray over it ! " If he did not su In- 
scribe the paper at once, as E greatly wished him to do, no 
one could convince me that his motives for refusing to do 
so were otherwise than unright and patriotic. 

Mr. Brownlow is no longer Governor of Tennessee. 
While he was in that high and responsible office no one 
ever ranked me among his political supporters; though L 
should he ashamed to remember now that I have ever for 
a moment distrusted his integrity or seriously called in 
question his capacity. I can now say with absolute sin- 
cerity what all Tennessee, I arusure, will one day acknowU 



230 CASKET OF REMipSCENCES. 

edge, that the noble State which holds in her bosom the 
ashes of a Jackson, a Polk, and a Bell, has seldom, if ever, 
been blessed with an executive chief of greater ability 
than Mr. Brownlow, and certainly with not a single one 
more nnright and well-intentioned than himself. I regret 
to have to say, in conclusion, that some startlingly cor- 
rupt and profligate transactions recently reported to me 
from the capital of Tennessee have constrained me pain- 
fully to regret that some such an incorruptible and in- 
domitable man as the much reviled William G. Brownlow 
is not now at the governmental helm of that unfortunate 
but time-honored Commonwealth, where organized rob- 
bery, under the once venerated name of Democracy, has 
been notoriously allowed to seat itself among the money 
bags of the State treasury, in order to satiate, at leisure, 
its rapacious maw with that which has been extracted 
from the blood and sweat of an industrious, high-minded, 
but too confiding people. 

Some of mine ancient friends in Tennessee will now un- 
derstand that of which I warned them two years ago, 
when certain plausible, fair-spoken gentlemen about their 
State Capitol were opposing so fiercely and uncivilly the 
creation of a third party in Tennessee — to be composed of 
the best materials of the two old ones— and perceive what 
objects these ingenious gentlemen then had in view, and 
will, I hope, guard against any similar attempt to deceive 
them from the same quarter. Surely after- this astound- 
ing development few citizens of Tennessee will continue 
to doubt the imperious necessity there existing that old 
and worn-out party names should be forever given up; 
that the rotten and tottering organization still called 
Democratic, but which really has not now one particle of 
healthful and useful vitality, and which has been, by de- 
ceitful specifics of various kinds, retained upon the arena 
for the exclusive benefit of a few heartless and uncultured 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 281 

demagogues, should be at once allowed to sink into the 
grave which has been for full ten years yawning to receive 

it; after which all the real friends of order and progress 
may become, there as elsewhere, cordially united in an 
effort to cicatrize all the wounds of the past, and to renew 
those scenes of sweet tranquillity and brotherhood in 
which our honored fathers, in the olden time, once so re- 
joicingly participated. 



CASKET 0. REMfNISOENCES. 



REMINISCENCE No. XXIV. 

THE CONFEDERATE CABINET JUDAH P. BENJAMIN'S CAREER 

THE HAMPTON ROADS CONFERENCE AND THE MEETING AT THE 
AFRICAN CHURCH. 

[ have thiouojht it best to reserve certain particulars 
specified in the present number for this perhaps last of the 
reminiscences of the past which I shall now write. The 
facts which will be narrated in the paragraphs which follow 
have to some extent been alluded to before, but not fully 
set forth. 

I was not a little amused the other day at learning 
from the lips of a very distinguished citizen of Maryland 
that ex-Senator Wigfall, now, as I learn, a resident of the 
neighboring city of Baltimore, is much in the habit of 
saying that there are no two men living who could have 
brought about the defeat of the Confederate cause save 
Jeff. Davis and Judah P. Benjamin. Mr. Wigfall is un- 
doubtedly himself a man of an active and vigorous intel- 
lect, and of a singularly enterprising spirit, and it is but 
due to him to say that, while occupying a seat in the Con 
federate Senate, he manifested on many occasions a sterling 
independence of character, and yielded a consistent support 
of his own avowed principles, calculated to secure to him 
the esteem and confidence of many who were themselves 
very far from concurring in all his extreme political opiri- 
ioi)3. That he placed a proper estimate upon Mr. Davis 
and Mr. Benjamin 1 shall readily acknowledge: but 1 
must be permitted to doubt whether any abilities or vir- 
tues in the leaders nt' the Confederate movement would 
have been sufficient to secure the object sought to be at 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 233 

tained,and I tun very confident, for reasons already given 
by me, that the most complete success of the rebellion 

would have been signally ruinous and dishonoring to the 
Southern States and people. E have no inclination to de- 
scant further now upon this painful topic. The day is 
very far distant, I am sure, when any such injudicious ex- 
periment as the attempt to establish a separate Southern 
republic will he again essayed; and the sad experience of 
the past will be very likely to prevent those who have suf- 
fered so grievousl) from the shortcomings arid gross dere- 
lictions of Messrs. Davis, Benjamin, and their close ally, 
Mr Hunter, of Virginia, from intrusting to three individ- 
uals of precisely such attributes and qualifications as they 
have heretofore exhibited the lead in any movement what- 
ever of great national importance. 

After all that has been heretofore published by me no 
one, I am sure, will be at all surprised that almost as soon 
as I reached Richmond, in the winter of 18'J2-'3, I felt 
called upon to initiate a, struggle for the reformation of 
Mr. Davis strangely-constituted Cabinet. Every honor- 
able effort of which I was capable was made for the official 
displacement of Mi-. Benjamin, Mr. Mallory, Mr. Seddon, 
Mr. Memminger, and Mr. Northrop, the Confederate Com- 
missary General. After a warm and long-continued strug- 
gle Mr. Mallory was able to secure impunity at the hands 
of Congress for his many malfeasances and almost in- 
numerable blunders. Mr. Benjamin's renomination by 
Mr. Davis for the Department of War was defeated in the 
Confederate Senate, but this, as it chanced to turn out, 
was only equivalent to "kicking him up stairs," as is 
known to have been the case in a certain noted instance 
in English history; for on Mr. Davis' nomination of him 
afterward for Secretary of State the Confederate Senate 
wa> persuaded to confirm him — mainly, as one may rea- 
sonably conjecture, because of its being known that Mr. 



234 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

Davis Deeded constantly the aid of a facile and polished 
writer in the preparation of his messages and other im- 
portant official documents. After an earnest and long- 
continued effort I procured at last such a declaration from 
the Honse of Representatives of want of confidence in Mr. 
Memminger as compelled his special friends in that body 
to engage for him that if I would not press my resolution 
to a final vote he would resign immediately after theclpse 
of the session of Congress then in progress. Mr. Seddon, 
against whom I originated proceedings equally hostile, 
was able to prolong his official life for some months by 
reason alone of the shameful inaction of the special com- 
mittee to whom my resolution of inquiry in his ease had 
been referred to report the deeply dishonoring facts which 
had been fully established against him. But his official 
head at last underwent the process of amputation with 
something like universal consent. Mr. Northrop, being a 
special favorite of Mr. Davis, was able to hang on yet a 
little longer before Congress at last united in demanding 
his removal. Benjamin remained in the Department of 
State practicing every sort of enormity up to the moment 
of Mr. Davis* noted hegira from Richmond, and then these 
two great State culprits fled together, leaving orders be- 
hind them for the immediate burning of Richmond. 

Before this occurrence, though, as has been already 
heretofore mentioned, the two houses of the Confederate 
Congress, having at last become thoroughly satisfied of 
Mr. Davis" utter incompetency, had demanded in form 
that he should at once surrender all control of the armies 
of the Confederacy into the hands of that upright and 
able commander General Robert E. Lee, to which official 
degradation Mr. Davis, though manifesting at the same 
time the greatest reluctance, was absolutely compelled to 
submit. 

About ten or twelve days before this last transaction I 



CASKET <)F REMINISCENCES. 285 

left Richmond; not, though, before making every possible 
effort to get Congress to adopt a resolution advising Mr. 
Davis to make peace with the Government at Washing- 
ton upon the very just and liberal terms which it was 
well known to us that President Lincoln was then willing 
to accord. 

I will pause in the recital which has been commenced 
for a moment or two only, in order to put on record here 
in a more particular manner certain matters in reference 
to which posterity will be likely to feel a little curious. 
Mr. Benjamin has been already more or less referred to in 
terms of merited reprobation; but there are well-known 
facts in this man's history which should have always pre- 
cluded him from official employment, even of the lowest 
grade. He undeniably disgraced himself in a notorious 
case of meum and tuuni, causa pecunice, before he lefl col- 
lege. His whole career in Louisiana had been hideously 
marked with dishonesty and corruption. I Lis known 
participancy in the famous Houmas fraud, while a mem- 
ber of the United States Senate, by which Air. Slidell and 
other associates in wickedness by a shameful act of legis- 
lative legerdemain on the last night of a session "of Con- 
gress, got passed through both houses of the National 
Legislature an amendment to a bill there pending, (the 
effect of which, bad it not been afterward set aside by the 
action of Congress during the early days of its next ses- 
sion, would have been to deprive several hundred citizens 
of Louisiana of their cherished homes,) was fully exposed 
at the time in the columns of the National Intelligencer by 
thai intelligent and upright gentleman, the Hon. Henry 
Johnson, and therefore needs no further explanation here. 
This man Benjamin was notoriously occupied almost 
every night during his stay in Richmond in betting at 
faro, and on several occasions while thus disreputably en- 
gaged is reported to have owed his escape from the vigi- 



23 '6 CASK E T F R MINIS C E N CBS . 

lahce of the officers of the law alone to his prompt dex- 
terity in leaping from the back-doors of the gambling-- 
hells, where he was thus seeking the recreation of his 
faculties. These, with many other particulars or a simi- 
lar stamp, were openly depictured by me in the legislative 
body of which I was a member : in proof of which I shall 
venture to insert an extract here from iv Pollard's First 
Year of the War,"" which, though it may be justly thought 
to commend me far beyond my merits, will supply evi- 
dence that what I am now saying about the official mal- 
conduct of the person to whom 1 have been alluding is 
not now for the first time uttered by me. These are the 
words of Mr. Pollard : 

There was bur little opposition in Congress to President Davis, bnt 
there was some which took the direction of his Cabinet, and this oppo- 
sition was represented by Mr. Foote, of Tennessee — a man of acknowl- 
edged ability and many virtues of character, who had re-entered upon 
the political stage after a public life which, however much it lacked in 
the cheap merit of political consistency, had been adorned by displays 
of wonderful intellect and great political genius. Mr. Foote was not a 
man to be deterred from -peaking the truth ; his quickness to resent- 
ment and his chivalry, which, somewhat Quixotic, was founded in the 
most noble and delicate sense of honor, made those who would have 
bullied or silenced a weaker person stand in awe of him. A man of 
such temper was not likely to stint words in assailing an opponent, and 
his sharp declamation in Congress, hi> searching comment-, and hi- 
great powers of sarcasm, used upon such men a- Mallory. Benjamin. 
;ind linger, were the only relief of the dullness of the Congress, and. 
the only historical feature* of ii- debates. 

I do not wish now to expatiate upon this nauseating 
theme; but, in order to present Mr. Benjamin in the 
fiendish character which lie so consistently sustained dur- 
ing the whole course of the rebellion. I shall here insert 
part of a well-known order whieh emanated from him as 
Secretary of War on the 25th of November. 1861, ad- 
dressed to Colonel \V. 13. Wood: 

Siu: Your report of the 20th instant is received, and I now proceed 



(j AS k ET i- K E M I N I SC E \ ( ! Eg. Z6 i 

tp give you the desired instruction in relation to the prisoners of war 
taken by you among the traitors of East Tennessee : 

First. Ulsuch as can be identified in having been engaged in bridge- 
burning are to be tried summarily by drum-head court-martial, and if 
found guilty, executed on flu- spol by hanging. // n-<,ul I be well to 
hare I heir bodies hanging in ///(■ vicinity of the burned bridges, &c. 

This infernal act of Mr. Benjamin needs no comment, 
lie is a man of undoubted ability and learning. Mis voice 
is as dulcet anc[ mellifluous as that of the nightingale. 
lie wears almost perpetually upon his visage a smile as 
bland and insinuating as that which may be supposed to 
have sat upon the face of .Judas Iscariot when he was be- 
traying the Saviour of the world with a kiss. After per- 
petrating his heartless schemes of mischief he is repre- 
sented by those familiar with his secret hours of relaxation 
to have been repeatedly heard to chuckle like Qnilp in 
the " Old Curiosity Shop, !' as delineated by the graphic 
pen of Dickens, over similar achievements ; and the de- 
scription of his grotesque person is, by reason of the some- 
what dw'arrish yet bulky frame attributed to him, amus- 
ingly applicable to the late Secretary of State of the so- 
ealled Confederate States of America. 

Now, as this man had the fortune to be such a special 
favorite of Messrs. Davis and Hunter as to have been se- 
lected by his cunning co-plotters in mischief to make the 
opening speech to the crowd assembled at the African. 
Church in Richmond for the purpose of being edih'od 
touching the somber mysteries of the famed Hampton 
Roads negotiation, it has been thought not amiss to let 
the world know who and what he has heretofore been in 
this world of sorrow uud care. 

At this same meeting .VI r. Hunter is reported to have 
[(resided, lie did not, as we are told, himself address the 
assemblage. This would not at all have suited the pur- 
pose desired to he accomplished. Had he done so he 
would have been compelled \)\ the natural curiosity of 



2&8 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

those in attendance to answer sundry questions relating 
to what had actually occurred at Hampton Roads, which 
would have imposed upon him the necessity of revealing 
all that he knew, or of telling a downright falsehood. 
For neither of these was he quite prepared ; he preferred 
the device so well known to trickish political demagogues 
under the name of suppressio veri. It was announced 
from the chair, as I learn, that no one would be expected 
to speak on this occasion but those whose names would 
be called in succession by the moderator of the meeting. 
Mr. Benjamin now came forward, and made the most 
guileful and plausible address which he was capable of 
providing, in which those present were told, in most hon- 
eyed and pathetic accents, that Mr. Davis was solicitous, 
above all living men, for peace, and that with a view to 
attaining this object he had dispatched three commission- 
ers to meet Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward, one of whom, 
he said, was Mr. Stephens, of Georgia, who, being known 
by Mr. Davis to entertain the opinion that a just and hon- 
orable peace was attainable, had been given a place on 
the commission, in order that a fair experiment on this 
subject should l>e made: but alas ! alas! and again alas! 
Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward had been both found to be 
inflexibly bent upon the prosecution of the war, and had 
fiercely demanded of the Confederates States and people 
an unconditional submission. Whether he shed tears on 
this occasion over the cruel disappointment of Mr. Davis' 
ardently-cherished wishes for peace I am not precisely in- 
formed. After this siren song of Mr. Benjamin laid been 
thus winningly sung, it was easy for Mr. Davis himself 
to come forward and declare that since they were now 
forced to choose between unconditional submission and a 
continued prosecution of the war, he was decidedly for the 
latter; and to get those whom he addressed, and who 
were kept in absolute ignorance of the real facts that had 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 239 

just been taking place on the steamer in Hampton Roads, 

to adopt the bold and sanguinary resolutions which were 
now presented for their consideration. 

During- the three or four hours which were spent at the 
African Church not a word was spoken by any one touch- 
ing Mr. Lincoln's amiable and conciliatory demeanor at 
Hampton Roads ; not a word about the four hundred mil- 
lions which had been virtually tendered the slaveholding 
peopl e of the South as a recompense for the slaves they 
had lost; not a word was said about the magnanimous 
offer of amnesty to the whole people of the South ; not a 
word in reference to the manly explanation given of Mr. 
Lincoln's proclamation of freedom to the colored population 
of the South, favorable, as was that explanation, to the slave- 
holding people of the South. Mr. Stephens, when he wrote 
his famous book on the war, deemed it necessary to state 
the facts just referred to at great length ; why did not Mr. 
Hunter, as chairman of this Richmond meeting, do the 
same thing? Why did not Mr. Davis make, at that time, 
an exposition of the whole truth of the case to those who 
had flocked to the African Church in order to learn the 
exact condition of public affairs, and ascertain what 
chance yet existed of the early termination of this wast- 
ing and bloody conflict? Why were not Judge Campbell 
and Mr. Stephens invited to state in the hearing of those 
who had convened all that Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward 
had said and done at the Hampton Roads? Why was it 
not stated,' as Mr. Stephens has done in his book, what a 
noble and magnanimous desire General Grant had ex- 
hibited for peace without any more shedding of fraternal 
blood, and of the disappointment and chagrin he had evi_ 
denced at hearing that the negotiations for peace had 
failed? Why were not all these important particulars 
frankly disclosed to the Confederate Congress? Why 
were not the citizens of the South, whether in the army 



240 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

or at their own homes, allowed to know what a golden 
opportunity was now open to them of being restored once 
more to the ineffable blessings of peace and to the pater- 
nal protection of the noble Government upon which they 
had been in an evii hour persuaded to commence so cause- 
less and unprovoked a war ? 

It will not do for these gigantic wrong-doers to plead 
now in their defense that Mr. Lincoln made to the Con- 
federate commissioners no formal tender of peace. This, 
of course, it was impossible to do without impliedly recog- 
nizing the independence of the Southern States, which it 
was altogether out of Mr. Lincoln's power to grant had 
he been ever so much disposed to do so. I insist, as I 
have always insisted. and asall men of intelligence every- 
where will be soon found to admit, that the artful, secre- 
tive, and perfidious conduct of Mr. Davis, Mr. Hunter, 
and Mr. Benjamin, in concealing from the people of the 
generous and patriotic South the liberal and humane offers 
of President Lincoln at Hampton Roads, is one of the 
most unpardonable instances of public malefaction and 
treachery that has ever stained the history of nations. 
Nothing can now atone for it, and no excuses which can 
he offered will be of power to assuage the rising indigna- 
tion, of a cruelly mistreated people. Not a drop of hlood 
was afterward shed in this terrible war for which Messrs. 
Davis, Hunter, and Benjamin are not clearly responsible. 
All the evils which the unhappy South has since experi- 
enced are attributable to these monstrous public criminals 
alone, and the day will come when the language which I 
am now using on this subject, harsh as it may seem to 
some over-fastidious ears, will be everywhere regarded as 
singularly marked with moderation and forbearance. 

Knowing Mr. Davis and the clique of which lie was the 
head so well, I plainly perceived when I left Richmond 
what course of deception and fraud they would he sure to 



Casket of reminiscences. 241 

pursue when driven by public sentiment to make some 
ostensible effort for peace. I did not at all doubt that 
they would avow themselves to be for pesace, could one be 
obtained on honorable terms; but to a peace on the basis 
Of a restoration of the Union they were invincibly op- 
posed. This would have robbed them of their ill-gotten 
power; this would have consigned them to political dis- 
credit ; this would have defeated the scheme of founding 
a new empire on American soil, with Jefferson Davis as 
its brilliant Executive Chief Imperial. The longer con- 
tinuance of the war could do Mr. Davis and Mr. Benjamin 
no harm, as those gentlemen well knew that, no matter 
how disastrous this conflict might prove to others, they at 
least would be safe from injury by reason of their having 
a large sum of money waiting for them in Liverpool, 
which they coijld seize upon and appropriate to their own 
use in case the Southern people should be whipped into 
submission. It was fully understood when they tied from 
Richmond that Mr. Benjamin should traverse the ocean 
as quickly as he could, in order to clutch this fund for 
future division between himself and his recognized lord 
and master. The journey to England by Mr. Benjamin, 
and by Mr. Davis also in due time, upon this grand fiscal 
expedition, many persons in Richmond know well that I 
openly prophesied at least six months before it occurred. 

Entertaining such views as these, I set out from Rich- 
mond in the cold and freezing month of January, 1865, 
in the direction of Washington city, in order to see 
whether the Government authorities there would not be 
willing to grant peace to the South on such terms as I 
would not be ashamed to propose to my countrymen of 
that region and urge upon their acceptance. Had I suc- 
ceeded in my mission I should have borne these terms 
back to Richmond, arid have boldly made them known to 
the people there resident and to the Confederate Congress. 
16r 



24l> CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

I designed to lay this grave matter before the people 
throughout the Confederate States, and to obtain, if I 
could, their prompt concurrence. A number of promi- 
nent and influential members of the Confederate Congress 
knew well what sort of a mission I was about to under- 
take, and encouraged me warmly toward its prosecution. 
Four worthy colleagues of mine in Congress from Tennes- 
see were consulted, and evinced the deepest interest in the 
success of my experiment. I had no favor to ask of the 
Government at Washington in behalf of myself or my 
particular friends. I contemplated making no revelation 
of Confederate secrets. I was engaged in an effort for 
peace and the restoration of the Union alone. 

A more harassing and disagreeable trip than that which 
T performed from Richmond to Lovettsville, near Har- 
per's Ferry, it would be difficult to imagine. I traversed 
a portion of the intermediate country by railway and on 
horseback, and I walked many miles on foot through a 
deep snow, and in weather as cold as I have ever felt. 

I found, on my arrival at Lovettsville, Brigadier Gene- 
ral Deven. of the United States army, in command there, 
to whom I surrendered myself, and told him the object of 
my coming. He treated me with marked courtesy and 
kindness, and allowed me to open a correspondence with 
the authorities in Washington, which correspondence was 
published in full eight years since, and is, therefore, un- 
necessary to be here repeated at length. 

It is sufficient to say that the pacific mission which L 
had assumed was a total failure, mainly, I have reason 
to believe, because President Lincoln and Mr. Seward 
had been persuaded to anticipate a successful issue of the 
Hampton Roads negotiations. The following short ox- 
tracts from my letter to Mr. Seward from Lovettsville, 
will, perhaps, be read with more or less interest by some : 

"I now have the honor to say for myself am] foralarge number of the 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 243 

most weighty and influential statesmen that the South contains, and, 
as I have good reason to believe, in accordance also with the wishes of 
:i very large majority of the sovereign people of the Southern States, 
whether in or out of the Confederate armies, thai we, conservatives of 
tlie South, are ready and anxious to enter once more into fraterna] 
union with our fellow-citizens of the North ; that we are resolved, if an 
opportunity of doing so honorably shall be afforded us. to withdraw 
at <>nee from all political connection with the government now located 
in the city of Richmond, and to place ourselves once more under the 
protection of the flag of our fathers. 

"No one knows better tha 1 do that no such pacification asthaf which 
I now propose can come from Mr. Davis. His official position and his 
devotion to his own selfish schemes of individual aggrandizement alike 
forbid it. But let President Lincoln issue a formal proclamation, ad- 
dressed to the people of the Confederate 'Stairs, offering them complete 
wnnesty for the past, and a full restoration of the constitutional rights 
which they formerly enjoyed, and they will immediately hold conven- 
tions in all the said States, and vote themselves back into the Federal 
Union, call home their troops, and leave Mr. Davis to enjoy, in such 
manner as he may.be able to do, the despotism which he has estab- 
lished, together with such foreign protection for himself and his ignoble 
projects as it may he in his power to secure. 

******** 

" In conclusion, I have to declare that if, as I have never heretofore 
believed, but as has been diligently inculcated by certain persons in the 
South, subjugation, instead of paternal,paciflcation, is intended by those 
who now bear rule in Washington city. I shall have to ask that — pro- 
vided always you do not desire to try me as a criminal offender, an 
ordeal not altogether unanticipated by me, and from which I shall 
assuredly not shrink — you will be kind enough to send me such a pass- 
port as will enable me to go to some foreign country without delay, 
being utterly unwilling to witness the unimaginable horrors of which 
the present year of this most unnatural and impolitic war can not but 
he productive." 

It being concluded at Washington not to negotiate fur- 
ther with me unless I would reveal the names of my nsso- 
ciates, I declined to do so. and was given written leave to 
go abroad, which I determined to do in the first ocean 
steamer which might set out for Liverpool. 

During my further stay in New York Mr. Seward, for 
some reason nol precisely known bo mo, directed that I 



244 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

should be kept in prison, where I remained until the day 
of my departure for England, when I was escorted by a. 
military officer to the steamship in which I was to em- 
hark, and took my leave of my native land with much 
sorrow and chagrin, intending to return, if I could, in two 
months, by which time I felt confident the war would 
have drawn to an end. 

The voyage to Liverpool was performed in eleven days. 
T proceeded thence to London, to Paris, to Lyons, to 
Turin, Pavia, Bologna, Florence ; and, of course, I called at 
all the intermediate points. From Florence I set out for 
Leghorn, where I took a steamer for Xaples,and after visit- 
ing Pompeii and other places of note in that vicinage, 1 
proceeded to Rome by land, thence to Oivita Vecchia by 
railway, thence to Leghorn by stage-coach, from which 
latter place I set out for Marseilles by water. On arriv- 
ing there I proceeded to Paris by railway, thence to Lon- 
don again, thence to Liverpool, and set sail from that city 
tor New York, which I reached in less than seven weeks 
from the time that I had set sail from that place to Liver- 
pool, .lust as I entered the port of New York the news 
of General Lee's surrender was received, and I became' 
anxious to go South, in order to aid in reconciling my 
countrymen there to the results of the war. But Mr. 
Seward not deeming; this to be desirable I was ag*ain cast 
into prison for a week or two. President Lincoln, as I am 
assured, was about to order my release when the hand of 
the assassin consigned him to the tomb ! After Mr. John- 
son's accession to power, through the zealous instrumen- 
tality of several valued friends, I was allowed once more 
to breathe the fresh air of heaven, but held under obliga- 
tion to report at the headquarters of General Dix from 
time to time, and. not on any account to go south of New 
York ; from which I conjecture that I must have been 
viewed b} r those then in power at Washington as a par- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 245 

feicularly combative and dangerous person. Under these 
circumstances I asked to be allowed to visit my children 
and grandchildren on the Pacific coast; in response to 
which application I was peremptorily ordered to leave the 
United States on pain of being again thrown into confine- 
ment. Without delay I proceeded to Montreal, in Can- 
ada, where, for several months, I was the recipient of the 
kindest hospitality at the hands of the intelligent and re- 
fined population of that city. I was so much pleased with 
Montreal that, despairing of being permitted within a 
reasonable period of time to return to my own home in 
Tennessee, I was proceeding to make arrangements for a 
permanent residence in Canada when an event occurred 
which unexpectedly procured me permission to return to 
Nashville. One morning, in front of the principal hotel 
in Montreal, some seven or eight persons, chiefly Confed- 
erate refugees, announced to me their intention to pull 
down the flag of the United States from the roof of the 
building occupied by the American Consulate. I remon- 
strated warmly against a movement so indecent and ruf- 
fianly, and told them that if they persisted in the execu- 
tion of this disgraceful project I would, in connection with 
other citizens of the United States then in the neighbor- 
hood, whose aid I could easily obtain, defend the flag of 
our fathers at the hazard of my life ; stating that the war 
was now over, and it behooved those of us who had been 
seduced into rebellion to return as promptly as possible to 
the pathway of patriotic duty. No more was heard of 
this insane scheme. 

A few days after this, Major Potter, the high-toned and 
eliivalrous Consul General of the United States, called on 
me at my boarding-house, expressed the high gratifica- 
tion which my conduct on the occasion just mentioned 
had given him, and told me that in consideration thereof 
he had himself demanded from the Washington authori- 



246 CASKET of REMINISCENCES. 

ties permission for my return to the bosom of my family 
in Tennessee. In a day or two more I was journeying 
toward the loved South, on reaching which I commenced 
the most earnest efforts for the reconcilement of my un- 
happily-estranged countrymen to each other, which efforts 
have been unremittingly continued, as many thousands 
well know, up to the present moment. 

There are three circumstances upon which I shall ever 
be disposed to congratulate myself; the first of these is 
that I had no hand whatever in bringing on the war of 
the rebellion ; the second is, that I have never possessed 
the sympathy or confidence of the ultra-secession leaders 
of the South and their slavish satellites; and the third is, 
that I do not owe my restoration to the enjoyment of 
civic rights to Andrew Johnson, but to the generous and 
magnanimous action of the National Legislature; in 
grateful return for which I pledge myself never again to 
be persuaded to the assumption of a hostile attitude 
against the noblest Government that the world has yet 
seen, and to do all in my power, so long as 1113' life shall 
be continued, to secure the return of universal peace, 
amity, and true brotherhood among all classes of our peo- 
ple and between the various sections of the Union, under 
the Constitution as it is, and the laws made in conformity 
thereto. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 247 



REMINJSCENOH No. XXV. 

LYNCH LAW — VIGILANCE COMMITTEES IN THE SOUTH — HANG- 
[NG OF NEGROES AND WHITES — THRILLING AND STARTLING 

SCENES. 

I shall soon be forced by the pressure of other affairs to 
Bupend these Reminiscences for the present. Perhaps I 
may never resume them again. They have been received 
by good men and true of all parties with indications of 
warm approval, as unexpected as they have been gratify- 
ing. I have uttered not a syllable, in any of them, in the 
interests of party or faction. I have lauded no one whom I 
did not sincerely believe to deserve commendation. I 
have stated objections to no one which I did not perfectly 
know that I could incontrovertibly sustain by evidence. 
It has been far from my expectation or desire to propitiate 
the hirelings of faction, or to call forth the praises of those 
whose minds know not how to give up errors once cher- 
ished, or to receive tire pure teachings of truth, however 
bitter and unsavory. To have received the praises of all 
such as I have just mentioned would have deeply wounded 
my own sense of personal self-respect, and have filled my 
memory with the rankling thorns of remorse. Persons of 
extreme views and of unassuageable prejudices, whether 
resulting from ancient party collisions or from sectional 
jealousy, I have not been desirous of enrolling upon the 
list of my friends and approvers. With individuals of 
this sort I have already waged a war longer than the an- 
cient Peloponnesian struggle, nor have I ever desired to 
be reconciled to any class of them at the expense of rea- 
son and justice, and my country's welfare. I have re- 
coiled from the discussion of no question however delicate 



24^ CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

the examination of which seemed to promise any consider- 
ate public advantage. I have spared no bad man from 
the lash of deserved reprehension, of whose crimes I felt 
I had adequate assurance. Nor have I failed to hold up 
the torch of ridicule for the exposition of the weaknesses 
or derelictions of such men as I judged to be possessed of 
tame and influence likely to stand in the way of my eoun- 
try's repose and happiness, and of the essential principles 
of progress needful to be welcomed and upheld upon the 
natal soil of Washington, of Franklin, and of Jackson. 
My earnest ambition has been, by all judicious and allow- 
able means, to promote the sentiments of good-will, of 
friendship, and of true brotherhood among all classes of 
my fellow-citizens of whatever political antecedents, ami 
of wdiatever complexion or lineage. The union of all who 
truly love their country, for the sake of the Union founded 
by Washington and his compeers, is a maxim which I am 
neither ashamed to own nor to put in practice. The affec- 
tionate and perpetual affiliation of all patriots and honest 
men against all narrow-minded and plotting factionists 
and all who love either gold or the perishable trappings 
of official splendor and dignity more than they do the 
priceless honor of this grand and noble Republic, its Con- 
stitution and laws, its high examples of public virtue, and 
all else that appertains to national honor and happiness, 
is another maxim which is to my mind and heart alike 
sacred aud dear. The past of my own humble career, 
whatever it may have been, is beyond amelioration; for 
the period of my earthly being which lies before me in the 
future I have neither any over-anxious fears nor over- 
hopeful anticipations. 

There is now one very important subject remaining in 
regard to which I desire to be heard as a, Reminiscent of 
the past. It is one eminently momentous in its bearings 
and well worthy of the sober and dispassionate, considera- 



CASKET OF RKMINISOENOES. 249 

Hon of all who employ the powers of thought for purposes 
of practical edification, and who are accustomed to treasure 

up the varied lessons of experience for the promotion of 
the real felicity of individual man and of all self-governing 
peoples. 

All who have ever duly meditated the actual uses of 
civil government must have found out that no govern- 
ment can be advantageous to those who live under it, or 
worthy of the least respect anywhere, that is not both capa- 
ble of enacting wise and wholesome laws and of enforcing 
them among all elasses of those for the regulation of 
whose municipal conduct they may have been provided; 
and it may also be asserted with safety that the organiza- 
tion of all social communities must be defective in some of 
the essential principles of corporate vitality in which any 
class of the people is allowed to set the laws at defiance, 
to tyrannize politically over other classes, or to employ 
the needful machinery of government itself for the purpose 
of enriching the few at the expense of the many. Domes- 
tic tranquillity, that most desirable of all municipal bless. 
ings, can never be effectually secured where injustice and 
oppression of any kind are systematically tolerated and up- 
held; the oppressed and persecuted will, under the irresis- 
tible promptings of self-love and the desire of self-preserva- 
ation, be naturally inclined to rise up against those who 
hold them in subjection ; and if the number of the wronged 
be sufficiently large to make them at all formidable, a sense 
of insecurity will find its way into the bosoms of the ruling 
classes themselves, and render them continually subject to 
groundless and fanciful alarms and apprehensions lest some 
sudden movement of revolt should be attempted under the 
leadership of a William Tell or a Spartacus, which must re- 
sult either in the downfall of tyranny itself, or in the bloody 
through transient avengenient of long-continued wrong. 

The history of Sparta, and the scenes of collision which 



2-50 CASKET of REMINISCENCES. 

so often marked with blood the repeated risings of the 
Helotes against their masters, as well as the celebrated 
servile insurrection in Italy already alluded to, in which 
several well-organized Roman armies were overthrown by 
the gladiatorial bands and the numerous white slaves 
whom they seduced into armed affiliation with them — 
during which even the Roman capital itself was for a 
short time in the hands of the revolted forces, supply the 
fullest illustration of the truth of the several propositions 
above stated. Let no unjust and overbearing class any- 
where, either in the British Isles, in France, in Spain, or 
Italy, or in our own country either, expect to secure its 
own permanent repose and happiness save by the meting 
out full justice to all reasonable human creatures who 
live within the limits of governmental control; for let it 
ever be borne in mind that even they who war 

With their own hopes and have been vanquished, hoar 
Silence, but not submission ; in bis lair 
Fixed Passion holds his breath until the hour 
Which shall atone for years. None need despair : 
It came, it cometh, and will come— the power 
To punish or forgive — in one we shall be slower. 

Lt lias been nearly a half century since the celebrated 
Southampton negro insurrection occurred in the State of 
Virginia, and many are yet living who remember well how 
greatly the whole public mind of the Sou*h was shocked by 
the bloody and revolting scenes with which that tragic 
affair was attended. Before the painful sensations awak- \ 
ened by it had well subsided the celebrated book of Stew- 
art made its appearance, which in a very ingenious and 
plausible manner delineated a scheme for the wide-spread 
insurrection of the slaves of the South, which scheme he 
asserted had been matured in the enterprising brain of the 
celebrated John Murrell, of Tennessee, who, having asso- 
ciated with himself a number of men of his own stamp, 
scattered through the Mississippi valley, including the 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 251 

noted Alonzo Phelps, and the whole body of Thompson 
tan doctors, was, upon a day agreed upon, to inaugurate a 
Bftovement which would soon result in such scenes of 
bloodshed and devastation as no country cither in ancient 
or in modern times has experienced. I knew Stewart 
well ; he was one of the most sagacious and insinuating 
persons I ever met. He traveled extensively through 
Mississippi and several adjoining States, and sold many 
thousands of his fearfully exciting and inflammatory hook. 
In some places he received high public honors; large pop 
alar assemblages were convened to do him honor, and 
presents of much value were showered upon him by those 
who lent credence to his alarming revelations. He was 
looked upon by many as a great public benefactor, and 
those who dared even to question the actual existence of \ 
the dangers which he depictured were suspected by their 
more excited fellow-citizens of a criminal insensibility to 
the supposed perils of the hour, or were denounced as 
traitors to the slaveholding interests of the South Never 
was there an instance of more extravagant and even mad- 
dening excitement amid a refined, intelligent, and virtue- 
loving people than that which I had the pain to witness 
in the counties of (ventral Mississippi in the summer of 
L835. Vigilance committees were organized in some ten 
pr a dozen counties, where the negro population was most 
numerous, and where, of consequence, the slaveholding 
class was more sensitive to the cries of alarm which at 
this time literally rang through the whole community. 
These committees were, in general, composed of the most 
wealthy and intelligent planters to be found in the several 
counties, but these planters were, of course, by reason of 
the fact that they stood more exposed than others to the 
dangers asserted to exist, also a good deal more alarmed 
than those occupyiug a less obnoxious attitude. The im- 
pression prevailed that the insurrectionary movement was 



252 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

to commence in the interior counties of Holmes, Yazoo, 
and Madison ; that the slaves were all to rise in these 
counties simultaneously ; that they were to murder their 
owners and their families at midnight, burn the towns and 
villages, and, after getting possession of sufficient supplies 
of ammunition, guns, and other instruments of violence, 
they were to sweep over the whole cotton-growing coun- 
try, spreading carnage and desolation wherever they 
should come. 

I well recollect that in the town of Clinton, in Hinds 
county, where I then resided, the panic awakened was so 
great that night after night the women and children of 
the place were assembled at a central position, where they 
remained till daylight, while all the male citizens moved 
in armed squads over the settlement, in order to meet the 
earliest approach of the incendiary forces, who were ex- 
pected confidently to come to our midst from the direction 
of Madison county. After the first organization of the 
vigilance committee, which sat afterward every day, the 
excitement, as was natural, increased perceptibly every 
hour. Suspected persons, both white and black, were ap- 
prehended everywhere ; some of whom were brought be- 
fore the committee for examination, while others, whose 
guilt seemed to be fully established, were hung without 
ceremony along the roadsides or in front of their own 
dwellings by those who had apprehended them. 

It was a veiy unfortunate circumstance that just at the 
moment that these fearful occurrences were taking plaee 
in the counties of the interior a kindred scene was dis- 
played to view in the city of Vicksburg, in connection 
with the gamblers who at that time infested in great 
numbers this important commercial place. In consequence 
of the daring and revolting manner in which these aban- 
doned wretches carried on their unholy work of cheatcry 
and pillage, many of the belter citizens of the place vol- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 253 

unteered their services one morning to aid the officers of 
the law in effecting their apprehension. The gamblers 
shut themselves up in a certain house, which they barri- 
caded, as they thought, very securely, and boldly defied 
the regular functionaries of the law and those who were 
now co-operating with them. Under these circumstances 
the outside crowd resolved to force entrance into this ex- 
temporized fortress, and with a view to this end, broke 
down the door. The first person who got into the house 
was a Dr. Bodely, whom I knew well, and whom 1 re- 
member to have been a most intelligent and high-spirited 
young gentleman, of great professional promise. He was 
shot dead on the spot by some one of the villainous erew 
whom he was aiding to bring to justice. His associates 
then advanced upon the gamblers, succeeded in capturing 
them, and speedily hung them all publicly upon the street- 
side, without waiting for the more tardy and more author- 
ized action of the judicial tribunals. 

The new T s of this affair new quickly over the country in 
every direction, and added greatly to the excitement, and 
confusion already prevailing. 

The vigilance committees in Madison and the adjoin- 
ing counties were yet in vigorous and persevering action. 
A number of the poor Thompsonian empirics were taken 
up and either hung or severely whipped, according to the 
seeming force of the evidence adduced against them sev- 
erally. Madison county was still the main focus of ex- 
citement, and every day we heard in the peaceful village 
where I dwelt of some new case of supposed guilt which 
had been there developed, and some new application of 
punishment not known to the law of the land, but which 
was supposed to be justified by the terrible necessity then 
dominating over all things beside. One evening I received 
a brief written application from a young Iventuckian,- then 
in custody in the town of Livingston, in Madison county, 



254 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

beseeching me earnestly to come up and give him my aid 
as an advocate before the self-constituted tribunal by 
which he was to be tried next day. The poor fellow 
seems to have imagined that it was a real court that \\ ;i> 
about to examine into his case, and that a lawyer would 
be allowed to defend him before it. I did not at all con- 
cur in this notion, but not being able to refuse him my 
sympathy, I got on my horse next morning, and pro- 
ceeded to the place where his fate was to be determined ; 
which gave me a ride of about twenty miles. When I 
got to Livingston I saw a large multitude convened, com- 
posed almost altogether of excited white citizens, to most 
of whom I was personally well known. I dared not 
name my business to any one, for had I done so there was 
not much probability that I should have ever returned to 
my own home again. I tied my horse to a post on the 
street side, and went to the room in which the committee 
was sitting. The trial had already commenced. I looked 
into the face of the poor wretch who had sent for me, 
without deeming it prudent to make known to him who 
I was, and that I was now present at his solicitation. 
The examination was conducted in a very rapid and in- 
formal manner, and without the least regard to the estab- 
lished principles of the law of evidence. At length it was 
declared to be at an end. It appeared that this man had 
brought down a boat-load of corn from Kentucky about a 
month previous, had carried it up the Yazoo river for 
sale, and had sold it, together with his boat, when he be- 
came suddenly an object of suspicion, and was appre- 
hended and brought to Livingston for trial. There was 
not a particle of evidence implicating him in the guilt 
alleged, except that of two or three ignorant negroes in 
the vicinage, who had been seen once or twice near his 
boat, and from whose reluctant lips certain disclosures had 
been coerced under the severest infliction of the lash. I 



CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 255 

saw that the committee was about to convict the man, 
and I felt for him most deeply ; but what could I do? 
One of the memberB of the committee, Colonel Harden B. 
Runnels, observing that I manifested some interest in the 
trial, and yet lingered in the room, told me that if I 
wished to do so I might catechise the prisoner. I con- 
sented to do so. A more honest and benign face than this 
man presented I have never beheld. I turned to him, and 
calling him by name, I said, " You are a white man ; you 
say that you have a wife and children at home whom you 
love dearly; you say, also, that you are very poor, and 
that you came down here on a trading expedition, in or- 
der to get the means of saving that loved family from 
starvation ; you declare, in addition, that you have written 
to some member of your family whenever you could, and 
have sent them nearly all the money you have been able 
to earn ; now tell me, I beseech you, were you to witness 
a bloody conflict between the slaves of this country and 
the white people, on which side would you be?' 7 His 
eyes brightened with excitement, his voice was marked 
with all the emphasis of deep and manly feeling, as he 
responded, " Certainly, sir, I should be on the side of my 
own color."' I interrogated him no further. He was 
hung in less than twenty minutes! The newspapers in 
Kentucky afterward teemed with the affectionate letters 
addressed by him to his wife during his sojourn in Missis- 
sippi, on reading which nobody, even where I lived, at all 
doubted his innocence. 

I mounted my horse and rode in the direction of my 
uwn home. When I got about a mile from Livingston, 
in the midst of the beautiful hills which lie proximate to 
that well-remembered village, I saw a large crowd assem- 
bled. A good-looking white man, whom I very well 
knew, was tied to a tree, and stripped to the waist, whilst 
he was receiving a terrible east i gat ion with rods. He had 



256 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

been tried by the committee and acquitted, but be was, 
unfortunately, a Thompsonian doctor, and on tbat ground 
it had been thought that he ought at least to be decently 
scourged. 

I got to my own home next morning. When I rode 
into the town of Clinton I saw a large multitude assem- 
bled on one of the most popular streets, in front of a store 
in which a Mr. Archibald Kenney, now in Staunton, Vir- 
ginia, had some years before sold merchandize. I dis- 
mounted and went to the spot. I soon learned that the 
vigilance committee of that vicinage, composed of some 
of the best citizens of the county, had been trying a mu- 
latto man, whom I knew very well, upon a charge of 
being a participant in the scheme of alleged insurrection. 
A considerable quantity of powder and shot had been 
found in his possession, which circumstance had awak- 
ened some suspicions against him. The committee had 
tried him, and had sentenced him to be whipped only, 
and they would, indeed, have discharged him altogether, 
as I learned from themselves, had they not dreaded the 
indignant rage of the population of the town, then in a 
very excited condition. The committee had been unfor- 
tunate enough to sit with closed doors, which gave to the 
imagination of those not taking part in their proceedings 
a wide field for unfavorable conjecture. When the sen- 
tence was announced the outsiders determined to hang 
their longed-for victim at any rate ; and at the time I 
reached the place where they were assembled the prepara- 
tions for the execution of the boy were going forward. 
The boy had been in the ownership of a venerable gentle- 
man of the neighborhood, Captain Bell, a Virginia friend 
of mine of great respectability and intelligence. He had 
been a great favorite with his master, who had left him 
free. The captain had been dead about a year, and this 
boy, who by-the-by was nearly white, and singularly po- 



CASKKT OK feEMlNlgCENCES. 257 

lite and civil in his manners, had been since his master's 
decease a faithful protector of his family, which consisted 
of his widow and a single female child. This widowed 
lady had reached the fearful scene some minutes hefore 
my own arrival, and had been allowed, in connection with 
a learned and pious minister of the Gospel, Dr. Comfort, 
to hold a last interview with this unfortunate boy. She 
came forth from this interview, attended by her pious and 
humane protector, and advancing within the portico 
where most of the multitude were located, she spoke, with 
a voice much agitated and almost stilled with emotion, 
while the tears were rapidly coursing down her venerable 
cheeks, as follows : 

14 Gentlemen, you all knew my husband during his life, 
and respected him. This poor boy was his favorite ser- 
vant. I know his disposition and character well. I have 
just catechised him most searchingly. Had he been guilty 
as charged 1 should have been able to detect his guilt. I 
assure you that he is innocent. Oh ! gentlemen, (she 
wildly exclaimed,) is there not one among you who will 
stand up here as the representative and champion of a 
poor, widowed, friendless female?" I immediately rose 
to my foot, I looked circumspectly upon the crowd for a 
moment. I saw standing just before me the grim-looking 
face of a man notorious for his violent and blood-thirsty 
character, whose name was IJardwick, and whom I soon 
after prosecuted for a diabolical murder, for which he 
would certainly have been hanged if the victim of his 
atrocity had been a white man. I saw a new rope in this 
ruffian's hands, the texture of which lie was feeling with 
his accursed lingers, evidently for the purpose of ascer- 
taining whether it was strong enough to do the dread 
office effectually for which he had purchased it. I was 
conscious of all the perils which surrounded my position, 
17r 



&58 I \SKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

and I therefore proceeded with extreme caution. I spoke 
thus: " Gentlemen, you have heard the touching appeal 
of this venerable lady. I have nothing to add to her de- 
corous and impressive address, but I have a word to say 
to you of a prudential character in regard to yourselves 
and your own future responsibilities. The excitement 
now raging in this community may after awhile subside. 
Then it may be that some officious person shall wish to 
institute a prosecution for murder on account of the hang- 
ing of this boy. In my judgment it will be most safe that 
whatever is done in this affair shall be the act, as it were, 
of the whole community. I am not willing that a few 
generous-minded young men shall be made the scape-goats 
of this vicinage. Let us all join in whatever act may be 
resolved on. Now I will take the vote of the whole assem- 
blage upon the question of banging, if no one shall object 
to it." No objection being made, I said : "All in favor 
of hanging this unfortunate boy will signify the same b} r 
saying aye." Nine-tenths answered aye. I said : "Those 
opposed to hanging will answer no." About eight or ten 
persons said no. 

I determined to make one more experiment before I 
gave up all hope of saving a human being from a fate s<> 
dreadful as that I saw impending. The day was intensely 
hot. The street on which we were located was very wide 
and intersected with deep gullies. I said: "Gentlemen, 
let us settle this question more satisfactorily : All in favor 
of hanging will range themselves on the opposite side of 
the street: those in favor of mercy will remain under the 
shade of this portico." Nearly all rushed across the street! 
1 left the spot with feelings of sorrow and disgust which 
no words can express. The boy was swung into eternity 
in lees than lift ecu minutes from that moment, 

On my way home to dinner I met that distressed widow. 
6he was on horseback, and stopped for a moment to speak 



CASKKT (>F RKiWINISCKXCKS. 259 

to me. She said: " Mr. Foote, you know what has taken 
place today. You were, during the life of my venerated 
husband, his friend and his legal adviser. Tell me what 
1 had best do. I wish to prosecute the murderers of my 
servant. Will you undertake to bring them to justice? 
1 will reward you liberally. 7 ' 

" My dear madam," I said, " We are in the midst of 
most unhappy circumstances and of most appalling dan- 
gers. The community in which we live is in a frenzied 
condition. Were you to commence such a prosecution as 
you mention your own life would not be safe. Let me 
recommend to you earnestly to bow to the imperious 
necessity of the hour. "She looked at me for a moment 
with a mingled expression of sorrow and resentment 
upon her countenance, and then responded to me with a 
grave and touching solemnity of look I can never forget: 
" I will take your advice. Farewell ! " 

I remember to have at this moment consulted with my 
family whether we should not at once leave a region so 
replete with scenes of sorrow, and so full of danger to 
those who relied on the laws of the land for protection 
and security. 

A few days after 1 was in the city of Jackson. The 
Supreme Court of the State was in session there, of which 
the Hon. William L. Sharkey, so well known in Wash- 
ington, and so much beloved and respected everywhere, 
was Chief Justice. He came suddenly to my room at the 
hotel one day, about noon, and showed me a letter he had 
just received from Mr. Patrick L. Sharkey, his first cousin. 
1 read it. I found therein set forth the following facts, 
which were of course very concisely stated. A day or two 
before Mr. Patrick L. Sharkey, who was a very wealthy 
planter, a man of high intelligence and known piety, and 
who was also a justice of the peace, had, in his official 
character, examined a case brought before him which in- 



260 CASKET! OP REMINISCENCES. 

volvecl the charge of inciting the slaves to insurrection. 
Finding no evidence worth}' of respect to he adduced 
against the accused, he discharged the prisoner. This 
conduct greatly infuriated those who apprehended him, 
who, being citizens of Madison county, were manifestly un- 
der the influence of that excitement then raging in that 
most intelligent and refined community. These persons 
returned home, brought with them a large party of 
individuals equally excited as themselves to Sharkey's 
residence in the night-time with the intention of hanging 
him. He was a man of great fearlessness and determina- 
tion, and when this fierce and murdering band advanced 
to his house, threatening to put him to death if he did 
not at once surrender, he commenced firing upon his per- 
secutors, killed one of them, wounded another, slew a 
horse or two of the party, and then, having been himself 
severely wounded, crawled out of his house amid the dark- 
ness of the night into his garden, where his pursuers were 
not able to find him. He afterward managed to get to 
Clinton, where lie was then remaining, and proposed 
to throw himself under the protection of the committee 
there sitting, being certain that if dragged to Madison 
county in the existing temper of the popular mind there 
he should never get home again alive. He had now pa- 
pealed to his cousin, the highest judicial officer in the 
State, for advice and sympathy. Judge Sharkey had de- 
termined to obey the summons he had received — for he 
was a man who never shrank from the performance of 
what he believed to be his duty — and he now asked of me 
to accompany him to Clinton and to aid, if I could, in res- 
cuing his worthy cousin from jeopardy. I did as requested, 
and when we reached the town we went forthwith to the 
presence of his wounded and suffering relative, got into 
his carriage with him, and proceeded to the room where 
the committee of Hinds county were assembled. There, 



CASKET <)F REMINISCENCES. 261 

in a few words, I explained the object of oar coming, and 
urged that our fellow-citizen, Mr. Sharkey, had a right to 
claim an investigation at the hands of a committee of his 
own county instead of being sent to Madison county for 
trial. After this Judge Sharkey rose and made a modest, 
temperate, and exceedingly judicious speech, in which he 
recognized the supereminent authority of the committee. 
under the extraordinary ci^eumst-a-nees""e : xisting, and cx- 
pressed a confident hope that this tribunal would do his 
unfortunate relative justice, which was all that he asked 
for him at their hands. A body of citizens from Madi- 
son county were then in hearing, who came to demand 
the person of Sharkey, with a view to carrying him at 
once to Livingston, but our excellent Hinds county com- 
mittee refused this application, set Sharkey at liberty, 
and declared their determination to protect him against 
all further molestation. After this I instituted, in the 
name of the injured Sharkey, a suit for damages, and re- 
covered $10,000. This affair wound up the concerns of 
the vigilance committees in Mississippi. All alarm in 
relation to negro insurrection soon after ceased, and this 
docile and affectionate race a few years thereafter, din- 
ing the progress of a fierce and sanguinary civil war, 
proved that they are the most patient, the most forbear- 
ing, and the most magnanimous class of God's rational 
creatures that ever yet endured the unjust burden of ser- 
vitude for centuries, and were afterward established in the 
enjoyment of freedom by the manifest hand of the Deity 
Himself. Considering the conduct of the sons and daugh- 
ters of Africa during the war and since, too, so far as we 
have striven in good faith, and in a reasonable and liberal 
manner to conciliate them, it becomes us of the Caucasian 
stock in all time hereafter to 

Be to their faults a little blind, 
Ami to their virtues very kind, 
Hanging' a padlock on the mind. 



I 



262 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

I have mentioned the man Hardwick that took the most 
prominent part in the hanging of Captain Bell's favorite 
servant. In less than a year from that time this individ- 
ual, as I have already incidentally mentioned, murdered 
a colored man in the town of Clinton, and was prosecuted 
for it. This was one of the most ruffianly eases of killing 
I ever knew. As amiable, honest, and industrious a man 
as was to be found in all the land was torn by a band of 
eight or ten white men, with the infernal Hardwick at 
their head, from the bed of his sick wfie, amid the dark 
hours of the night, upon a mere suspicion of some offense 
never established against him in proof, tied over a barrel, 
and given one thousand stripes upon his bare back, such 
agony being inflicted upon the unfortunate victim that he 
bit his own tongue in two and died of lockjaw. I had 
Hardwick taken up immediately and put in close prison, 
all attempts to bail him proving fruitless, in which confine- 
ment he remained until brought to trial. At the end of 
six months an honest and conscientious jury was per- 
' suaded to acquit him on the ground that to hang a white 
man for murdering one of the colored race might have a 
tendency to encourage the slaves to rise in insurrection. 
When will men learn that perfect justice and humanity 
constitute the wisest policy of the fortunate and the pow- 
erful of this world ? 

I have only time to glance for a moment at the me- 
morable proceedings of the vigilance committees of San 
Francisco, about which so much has been at different 
times spoken and written, and in reference to which such 
contrariety of sentiment at one time prevailed, alike iu 
California and elsewhere. That both of these committees 
owed their origin to the failure of courts of justice to en- 
force the laws of the land, and to the gross corruptions 
which had found their way into the popular elections of 
that far-off region, no one would now think of denying. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 268 

Whether the social necessities existing were of so imperi- 
ous a nature as to justify the extreme expedients resorted 
to in this instance I shall not undertake to decide. I will 
close by the mention of a carious anecdote which hears close 
connection with the action of the last of these famous com- 
mittees. The celebrated General Edward C. Baker, after the 
committee had been organized, and was in full operation, 
uudertook to resist its power in a public speech on the 
plaza in San Francisco, to which I had the honor of lis- 
tening. Eloquent as he ever was, and popular as he bad 
been, the furious assemblage refused to listen to him. 
Having reason to deem his own life even in danger, he 
left San Francisco suddenly for the city of Sacramento. 
Nov did he deem it prudent to return to the great me- 
tropolis where he had so longed lived until the Presiden- 
tial election of 1856 came on, when he had it in his power 
to win back the popular favor by such extraordinary dis- 
plays of popular eloquence as have rarely marked any politi- 
cal conflict whatever, in support, too, of the Republican 
Presidential candidate of that period ; after which he was 
cordially invited back by the very people whose menaces 
<>f personal violence had driven him into temporary ban- 
ishment. Upon his return he delivered to a vast crowd in 
San Francisco, on the last evening of the Presidential can- 
vass, tlie most thrilling and electrical speech of his life. T 
have heard him say that when he mounted the stand on 
that occasion an amiable and accomplished daughter, 
seated by his side, whispered to him : " This, my dear 
father, is indeed the greatest triumph of your life." 



2B4 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



REMINISCENCE No. XXVI. 

RUM — ITS FATAL EFFECTS — DRUNKEN JUDGES, GOVERNORS,. 
AND OFFICERS — A PROHIBITORY LAW YEARS AGO IN MISSIS- 
SIPPI — HOW POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS WERE CONDUCTED. 

There was, perhaps, nothing more noticeable in the 
social status of Mississippi, and of several neighboring 
States, in the period which intervened between the 
years 1830 and 1840 than the immense quantities of in- 
toxicating drinks consumed by those who dwelt in this 
much-favored section of the Union. Drunkenness had, 
indeed, become a common vice, owing to which, and the 
deplorable fact that nearly all classes of the population 
went habitually armed, the number of scenes marked 
with personal violence which occurred it is really astound- 
ing to contemplate, even in recollection. At the time 
that I reached Mississippi it was almost impossible to 
enter a house of public entertainment anywhere without 
encountering men in a state of inebriation. The prevail- 
ing mischief was confined to no particular class of inhab- 
itants. Nearly all who went to places of public resort any- 
where paid more or less homage to Bacchus; and to drink, 
and to drink occasionally to excess, had positively become 
so fashionable that a man of strict sobriety was by many 
looked upon as a cold-blooded and uncongenial wretch, 
scarcely worthy to live. A refusal to imbibe when called 
upon to do so was apt to give serious offense, as implying 
a want of personal respect and amity. A very general 
notion was prevalent that the habitual use of alcohol — in 
some one of the many forms in which this terrible ele- 
ment of mischief was prepared for the gratification of an 
acquired and morbid appetite — was necessary to health, 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 265 

and thousands involved in this perilous delusion were 
every day taking poison into their stomachs, the operation 
of which, though slow and quiet, was just as certain in 
the end to destroy life as the rifle-shot' or cannon-ball. I am 

painting no fancy sketch when E say that I have often 
seen judges remarkable for ability an learning, and who 
before their elevation to the bench had ranked high as 
lawyers both of learning and eloquence, so much over- 
come with strong drink while presiding in court, even 
when important trials were in progress, as almost be unable 
to sit erect or get through the customary formalities of 
judicial proceeding without some grotesque and unseemly 
exhibition which it was exceedingly painful to witness. 
There were not a few members of the bar also who were 
found willing to aid as far as in their power to relieve the 
severity of their grave and useful calling by occasional 
participation in scenes of convivial enjoyment, and I have 
had the opportunity of hearing on a number of occasioto 
animated and boisterous speeches from lawyers of no lit- 
tle eminence, both in criminal and civil cases, which they 
w6uld never have thought of making but for the peculiar 
inspiration which they had derived from the flowing 
bowl. No one at that time seemed to suppose it even 
possible that a political canvass could be conducted with 
proper sprightliness and vigor unless some special arrange- 
ment should have been made in advance for liberal sup- 
plies of alcoholic stimulants to the sovereign voters of the 
land, who it was feared might listen with something like 
stolid indifference to dull and prosy harangues unless put 
beforehand under the magnetic influence of intoxicating 
draughts, known to have been paid for out of the pocket 
of the speaker to whom they were asked to give au- 
dience. 

I remember a somewhat amusing incident illustrative 
of the usual mode of conducting political canvasses in 



206 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

Mississippi at this period, which I will here briefly relate. 
Judge Edward Turner, for a long time chief justice of the 
Supreme Court of the State, and a man of many domestic 
and social virtues, became a candidate for a scat in the 
convention which assembled in the city of Jackson, in 
1833, for the purpose of amending the constitution of Mis- 
sissippi. The Senatorial district which he aspired to rep- 
resent in that body was composed of the counties of 
Adams and Franklin. His opponent was a young lawyer 
of some promise, who afterward became a zealous and 
efficient Methodist preacher and who won not a little dis- 
tinction also in the Mexican war. The voters and candi- 
dates confronted each other at an early stage of the con- 
test in a certain little country town. There was no very 
elaborate attempt to edify the multitude on this occasion 
by speech-making, but the use of an expedient far more 
convenient, and perhaps equally potential sometimes, was 
relied on for purposes of conciliation. Judge Turner had 
his large demijohn of whisky in readiness, and in his 
blandest manner called up the voters indiscriminately to 
drink with him. With a view to fixing them more fully 
in his interest this elegant and genial gentleman took it 
upon himself to help each individual to a drink, handed 
to him specially in the most affectionate and obsequious 
manner. This seemed to have a very happy effect, and 
any man but Dick Stewart, (as we were accustomed to 
call him,) would have at once given up the contest. But 
he did not even think for a moment of yielding the field. 
On the contrary, the state of affairs seemed to have inspired 
him with increased energy ami adroitness. When 
Judge Turner's demijohn was exhausted Stewart rose up 
and made known that he had some liquor on the ground 
also, which he trusted his fellow-citizens would consent to 
enjoy with him. When the voters gathered round the 
new supply, lie said; 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 26,7 

" Fellow-citizens : My venerable opponent, Judge 

Turner, (loomed it prudent to measure out to you his 
whisky. I shall do nothing of the sort. Here is my 
jug, and hero are glasses for you all. Come forward, one 
and all, and help yourselves." 

It is almost needless to say that the multitude cheered 
Stewart most vooiferously,and that he heal his venerable 
opponent in the election several hundred votes. 

I do not mean to say that this sort of treating to ardent 
spirits was indispensable at this time, or afterward, to a 
man's election in Mississippi. My own experience goes 
far to disprove this proposition; for I rejoice to have it in 
my power to say that I never Hid attempt, in any State 
where I have lived, to obtain votes by supplying my fel- 
low-citizens with the means of inebriation, either on a 
large or small scale; and that there has never heen a time 
when I have not looked upon this practice as far worse 
than the exercise of pecuniary bribery. 

But to proceed. There were, forty years ago, in the 
State of Mississippi, many towns and villages where the 
magnates of society would assemble regularly every day 
— not always even excluding the Sabbath — at some favor- 
ite hotel or tippling shop, and drink together in what 
was called a social way, from the hour of t^u, or half after 
ten in the forenoon, until the hour of dinner, which was 
usually about 1 o'clock P. M.; and I have seen, I am sure, 
each of those present on these occasions take some live or 
six drinks on an average, and certainly without suspecting 
that any one would he silly enough to accuse them of in- 
temperance. Nothing was more common than for a com- 
pany of jolly roysterers to get together, \>y day or night, 
tor the purpose of having what was called a, frolic, and 
seldom did they separate until the appearance of daylight, 
or until a sufficient number were not remaining upon 
their legs to keep the scene of festive merriment in lively 



268 GASKET UF REMINISCENCES. 

■ 

and impressive progress. Scenes of disgusting drunken- 
ness sometimes occurred, even in the bosom of grave legis- 
lative assemblies, some of which, indeed, might well have 
reminded one familiar with the pages of Tacitus of those 
bacchanalian consultations which he describes as having 
taken place among our worthy kinsmen, the ancient 
Germans ; whom he graphically depictures as often set- 
tling the gravest questions of peace and war under the en- 
livening influences of their ancestral beverage, (which I 
take to be lager beer;) and when each of those present was 
armed to the teeth with such weapons as might give force 
to eloquence that would otherwise possibly have been want- 
ing in persuasive force — or that might supply the means of 
counteracting what was deemed false logic — by processes 
far more reliable than the famed Elenchus of the Socrato- 
Platonic school of former days. 

I speak with much consideration when 1 confidently 
assert that a majority of ail the more serious criminal of- 
fenses committed in Mississippi during my long residence 
there were to be traced to the direct influence of intoxi- 
cating drinks. Two-thirds, and J think more, of all the 
instances of killing that occurred took place under cir- 
cumstances proving conclusively that but for the parties 
involved in collision having been demented at the time 
by alcohol no such tragic event was at all likely to have 
occurred. Those who have not properly explored this sub 
ject would be surprised could they in some way be in- 
formed how large a number of the social crimes not usually 
charged to alcohol have owed their origin to its influence, 
exerted either in a direct or indirect form. I am sure that 
no experienced lawyer much concerned in divorce cases 
will be inclined to call in question the assertion which I 
venture to make, that at least two-thirds of all the applica- 
tions for the abrogation of the matrimonial tie, now so 
alarmingly numerous, are the resultsof intemperance in the 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 269 

use of stimulating liquids. How many instances are now 
daily occurring of husbands murdering their wives, fathers 
slaying their own children, and children their aged and 
helpless parents, which are found on examination to have 
been brought about by the same terrible instrumentality! 
How many large fortunes have been wasted, how many 
fa mil ies have been consigned to abject poverty, how many 
children of bright intellectual promise have been bound 
in the chains of remediless ignorance, how many hearts of 
faithful friends have been broken,how much precious blood 
has been needlessly wasted, how much of individual fame 
and of national honor has been sacrificed, how much has 
the general wealth of the Republic been wasted in conse- 
quence of the prevalence in our dear native land of that 
single master-vice, intemperance 1 The money spent in 
the purchase of that fatal poison, alcohol, by the people of 
the United States would, in twenty years, probably pay 
the whole national debt, succor all the paupers of the land, 
and secure universal education to all the future men and 
women of the nation. And all this money is expended in 
purchasing that which only poisons the physical system 
and demoralizes and degrades the inner man. How many 
men who once enjoyed social respectability have been 
sunk in cureless infamy by habitual indulgence in the use 
of stimulating liquids! How many cherished friendships 
have been rudely broken, how many wives constrained to 
fly from once loved homes, how much genius and learning 
has been lost to the world from the operation of this cause 
alone ! Many a near and dear relative have I seen hurried 
to an untimely grave by the undue use. of strong drink, 
who, had they not listened foolishly to the voice of the 
charmer, might now have been administering comfort and 
happiness to large circles of loving and admiring friends. 
How many men of marked and acknowledged ability in 
ui) own profession have I not seen swept along by the 



£?0 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

fatal love of alcohol to want, to degradation, and to death 
ere yet they could be considered to have reached the zenith 
of their tame! How many individuals of all classes have 
I not been fated to see expiring amid the indescribable ago- 
nies of that most horrific of all maladies, known to us 
moderns as mania-a-potu, but which had never made its 
appearance in the world until the strong alcoholic liquids 
were brought into common use about three centuries ago! 
What a countless number of persons creditably connected 
in society have I not seen at different times passing to the 
grave as victims to the habitual use of strong drink, who 
to all appearance had not become at all aware of the real 
cause of the destruction of their bodily health ! 

I say it with a feeling of poignant sorrow and chagrin, 
and yet I assert with great confidence, that at least one- 
third of my cotemporaries now no longer among the living 
have been brought to an untimely end by the too free in- 
dulgence in the use of strong drink. Every man who 
drinks habitually is in constant danger of forming a habit 
of drinking which, after a while he will , be totally u liable to 
throw aside ; for the reception of this poison into the stom- 
ach, unless it be used as a medicine by drops, as it was so 
late as the reign of Queen Elizabeth in England, will in- 
fallibly generate a disease in the most sensitive parts of 
the nervous system, which, when once it becomes estab- 
lished, experience lias shown very soon gets beyond the 
reach of all curative remedies, and while it is preying upon 
the s} T steni, is every moment acquiring additional force by 
adding to the appetite for that which originally produced 
it, undermining the will so as to make all efforts for relief 
from its domination well nigh hopeless. This stupendous 
public vice had become so much diffused and apparently 
so essentially incorporated with the body-politic itself in 
Mississippi thirty years ago; drunken Governors, drunken 
legislators, and drunken judges, with many other persons 



cASKKT OK RKiYllNLSOKNCKS. 271 

of wealth and intelligence there, had so long set an exam- 
ple of intemperance to the multitude, and this example 
had been so extensively imitated — that, painfully ruminat- 
ing over the condition of the community, and foreseeing 
the evils of every kind which were evidently menaced for 
the t'utlire — having been elected to a seat in the State Leg- 
islature in 1839, to fill a vacancy which had just arisen 
— I resolved to make one effort to save the Commonwealth 
as far as might be yet possible from the further experience 
of such mischief as I have been detailing. With a view 
to this end 1 introduced in the House of Representatives 
a stringent and comprehensive anti-tippling bill, by which 
all persons whatever were prohibited, under the penalty 
of fine and imprisonment, from the vending of either vin- 
ous or spiritous liquors, to be drunk on the spot, in less 
quantities than a gallon, and which made it a penal offense 
for any candidate for office to supply the voters of the 
State with any quantity whatever of intoxicating liquors 
pending a canvass, and rendering all such candidates for- 
ever incompetent to hold any civil office whatever. There 
were in this bill other provisions of a kindred character. 
After a very warm struggle of a week or two I secured 
the passage of the proposed measure through both houses 
of the Legislature, winch thus became part of the law of 
the land. 

On the morning succeeding this occurrence a spectacle 
saluted the eyes of the multitude in and about Jackson 
which proved not a little amusing and gratifying to 
some. The effigy of the hated author of the anti-tippling 
law, which menaced grog-drinkers with such cruel depriva- 
tion of t heir accustomed enjoyments, was ^een pendanl 
from the boughs of a majestic oak which haply grew 
there, upon which was inscribed in glowing capitals my 
own name. I took no notice whatever of this insult, 
further than to use somewhat more pains than I' should 



272 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

otherwise have pat in requisition in order to make it cer- 
tain that the reformatory enactment which had given so 
much offense to the votaries of Bacchus thould be duly 
enforced in every part of the State. The beneficial effect* 
produced thereby are yet vividly remembered by thou- 
sands. The business of public tippling was almost totally 
suppressed. The courts of criminal cognizance had hardly 
anything to do. The principles of social order and deco- 
rum prevailed to an extent exceedingly gratifying to the 
hearts of all true philanthropists, and death from mania-a- 
pota and other kindred maladies was hardly heard of. Un- 
fortunately, though, for the State of Mississippi, demagog- 
ism had not yet ceased to exist there, and in a year or 
two after this most agreeable state of things was unfold- 
ed to view a concerted effort was made in various parts 
of the State to get the anti-tippling law repealed, on the 
ground that it was a gross infraction of popular rights; 
which effort, I regret to say, was but too successful. As a 
natural consequence of this prodigious blunder in legisla- 
tion the speedy renewal of the evil of intemperance was 
realized, with all the baleful consequences natural thereto, 
and in a worse form, perhaps, than would have been the 
case had no attempt ever been essayed to drive this giant 
monster from the land. Et is indeed sad to renect that 
any considerable number of men were to be found in an 
intelligent community who could suppose that the Creator 
had bestowed upon the rational being to whom He has 
given existence the right to destroy their own intellects 
and debase their own souls, and to scatter wantonly 
arrows, firebrands, and death through a wdiole community 
at their own pleasure. In a country like ours, where the 
successful solution of the problem of self-government ip 
confessedly dependent upon the intellect and virtue of the 
people themselves, the strange theory of human rights 
which has been alluded to is certainly one of a very incom- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 273 

prohensil)le character. As reason and the moral faculties 
alone distinguish man from the brute creation, so cultivated 
reason and the proper development of the moral faculties 
chiefly distinguish the civilized man from the savage. It 
is, therefore, obviously the duty of all governments, .and 
especially of such as are instituted by the people them- 
selves for the preservation and advancement of their own 
happiness, to provide by all suitable expedients for the 
extermination of all evils whatever threatening alike the 
ultimate subversion of their liberties and the most com- 
plete degradation of those from whom all civil power 
must emanate. The whole system of granting to any class 
of men the right to vend intoxicating liquids in places of 
public resort — thus formally attaching the sanction of the 
government itself to the efforts making to spread abroad 
the worst social evil which ever assailed the repose and 
well-being of mankind — should at once be discontinued, 
else government itself must be justly held responsible for 
all the mischiefs of every kind which uniform experience 
lias shown to flow from this most prolific source of ill. 

I have sometimes thought that the most painfully im- 
pressive illustration of the dangers which beset our coun- 
try at this time from the failure of the governmental au- 
thorities among us to unite for the extermination of intem- 
perance — that upas tree of mischief — from the soil of our 
loved America — was supplied on the 4th day of March, 
1865, when a Vice President-elect was inducted into the 
second office ot the Republic in point of dignity in a 
state of such beastly and disgraceful intoxication as would 
scarcely have been tolerated even in a dramshop or a. 
brothel. N r o scene at all similar is recorded in the 
history of civilized nations. After one such humiliating 
occurrence as Ibis, it is surely time.that we should look 
out seriously for the honor of the Republic, and see that 
18 R 



274 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

in all future time no such desecration of the high offices 
of governmental trust shall ever again occur. 

Strangers to our country and its institutions will, I 
fear, suspect that there must be some radical unsound- 
ness in our social organization if such conduct as that 
just alluded to, and the demoniacal influences to which it 
was doubtless in a great degree attributable, can be 
brought to light without awakening the liveliest feelings 
of disgust and indignation. 

It is possible that the views herein expressed and the 
unvarnished statement of facts I have ventured to make 
may prove a little unsavory to some who prefer expedi- 
ency to principle, and the unjust laudation of the un- 
worthy to the frank exhibition of their criminal aberra- 
tions from duty. In all that I have said on this occasion 
I have obeyed no monitor but truth, and the opinions to 
which 1 have given expression are those which I have 
long entertained, and such also as I have never been either 
ashamed or afraid to avow openly. Of one thing I have 
been long thoroughly convinced: until we become a sober, 
thoughtful, and righteous people, and dare to do our duty 
and our whole duty toward man and God, honestly, 
fearlessly, and patriotically, despite the arts of dema- 
gogues and dissemblers of all classes and complexions, we 
need not hope that the solid and enduring glory which 
our venerated fathers have taught us to recognize as the 
legitimate and logical result of the establishment and 
maintenance of free institutions can ever be fully realized. 



CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 275 



REMINISCENCE No. XXVIL 

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JUSTICE CURTIS, OP MASSACHU- 
SETTS; REVERDY JOHNSON, OF MARYLAND; GEORGE £ BAD- 
(JER, OP NORTH CAROLINA — CHARACTERISTICS OF THESE 
DISTINGUISHED STATESMEN. 

When Mr. Curtis, of Massachusetts, was appointed to 
a seat on the hench of the Supreme Court of the Union, 
I recollect that his elevation to a position to which he 
was so admirably adapted gave very general satisfaction to 
the country. II is high rank at the bar as a man of strong, 
astute, and scrutinizing mind, his spotless moral character, 
and his known exemption from all the extreme opinions 
and prejudices of party and section were well calculated to 
give repose to the public mind, and to assure those who had 
previously doubted the stability of our institutions that, at 
least, one additional safeguard had been now added to the 
frame-work of our National Union. 

Not knowing the newyl-created judge myself, 1 inquired 
ol* Mr. Webster what sort of a man precisely Mr. Curtis 
was, when he answered me in substance thus: "Mr. 
Curtis [ have long known most intimately, lie is a man 
of sterling integrity; his mind is one of great vigor and 
activity; he has not a particle of sectional prejudice; he 
is unswervingly devoted to the cause of the Union, and is, 
in my judgment, the best common law lawyer now in 
Massachusetts." All this was exceedingly agreeable to 
me to learn, and upon such very high authority, too. 1 
remember that I was v^vy near asking ol' Mr. Webster on 
this occasion whether he thought MrT Curtis superior in 
legal learning and in general ability to Reverdy Johnson, 
of Maryland, or George &, Badger, of North Carolina, as 



276 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

for both these gentlemen I had long; cherished very high 
esteem, as I knew Mr. Webster to do also. I did not 
propound this interesting inquiry simply because I 
thought that Mr. Webster might himself feel a little un- 
willing to pass upon the comparative merits of these ner- 
sonages, all of whom stood so high in his regard, and 
toward each of whom lie probably cherished feelings of 
about equal kindness. 

This colloquial interview with the illustrious sage of 
Marsh«field was brought very vividly to my mind the other 
day on a visit which I made to the hall of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, where I had the unexpected 
pleasure of seeing the venerated Nestor of the Maryland 
bar engaged in the argument of a cause of some complex- 
ity, involving the doctrine of the world-renowned "rule 
in Shelley's case.'' I was a little surprised at finding Mr. 
Johnson thus occupied, as I had been several weeks before 
informed that he had of late undergone a complete obscura- 
tion of the power of vision. But here was mine ancient 
friend, now almost an octogenarian, standing nearly as 
erect as ever, apparently in most robust health, and with 
an appearance of cheerfulness and animation seldom to be 
seen in any one whatever of his advanced years. 1 listened 
to the whole of Mr. Johnson's argument, and I have no 
hesitation in declaring that it seemed to me to be most 
complete in all its parts; being clear, methodical, and 
convincing, and delivered in a manner so graceful and 
impressive as to show that the last twenty years have 
fallen upon the physical and mental faculties of this re- 
markable man with an influence so gentle and innocuous 
as hardly to be perceptible in its effects, even to the most 
scrutinizing observer. Mr. Johnson's voice is almost as 
strong and penetrating in its tones, when he chooses to 
elevate it a little, as it ever was; his gesticulation is 
yet graceful and significant, and on this occasion he in- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 277 

dulged in one or two facetious allusions which awakened 
a quiet smile upon more than one of the visages of the 
grave dispensers of justice whom he was addressing. I 
could hardly believe him to be blind while he yet contin- 
ued to speak, but when his remarks had drawn to a close 
and he proceeded to walk in the direction of his hat, this 
sad deprivation became painful ly evident. I approached 
him and gave my hand, whispering at the same time my 
own name in his ear, when he greeted me with all his cus- 
tomary cordiality, and, referring to his loss of sight, said, 
pleasantly enough, that he lamented not to be able to dis- 
cover in my appearance those evidences of health which he 
did not doubt would have been otherwise perceptible to 
him. He then, for a moment or two, referred to the cotem- 
po raucous topics of the day, and made several inquiries 
as to [>articular public men of a nature clearly indicating 
that he was yet feeling a deep interest in what was going 
on in different parts of the Republic. 

I embrace this opportunity of offering one or two ob- 
servations upon this noted personage and upon some of the 
most memorable scenes of his long public career. 

The father of Reverdy Johnson was a distinguished 
member of the bar of Maryland for many years, and is 
acknowledged to have been one of the most learned and 
able judges which that State, so prolific in men of intel- 
lect, power, and culture, has ever had. His distin- 
guished son was born on the 21st of May, 179G, at 
Annapolis, obtained license to practice when he was not 
yet 21 years old, and located in Upper Marlboro', in Prince 
George's county, where he remained for two years, during 
which period he acted as Deputy Attorney General in 
what was then known as the first judicial district of the 
State. He removed to the city of Baltimore in the au- 
tumn of 1817, and has resided in that city or in its im- 
mediate neighborhood ever since. His first argument in 



278 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

the Supreme Court of the United States will be found re- 
ported in 12th Wheaton, and was made in the case of 
Brown vs. Maryland. 

His mind is one of uncommon strength and acuteness ; 
his temperament is ardent and generous ; his heart is kind 
and sympathizing to an extent not often known among 
those intensely devoted to the harrassing and irritating 
duties of the calling in which he has spent so many years 
of his laborious and eventful life. He is personally brave 
almost to a fault, and is distinguished above most of his 
cotemporaries for a polish and high-bred courtesy of de- 
meanor and an ever-flowing geniality of spirit which have 
made him, if possible, even more an object of general love 
and sympathy than of admiration and confidence. Dur- 
ing his long service in the National Senate I feel confident 
that he never made an enemy, and in his numberless con- 
flicts at the bar I .judge him to have been equally fortu- 
nate. 'No one, I am sure, doubts that lie is a man of most 
abundant legal learning, and his extraordinary success in 
the argument of the most difficult causes lias for the last 
thirty years commanded for him a very high place in the 
estimation of all the admirers of juridical erudition and 
consummate argumentative power. 

Asa politician Rcvcrdy Johnson has never (at least since 
I knew him) been for a moment what is known as a 
thorough-going party man. He has always been remarka- 
ble for that true manliness and independence, both of 
thought and action, which no mere servitor of faction has 
ever been known conspicuously to display. He has ever 
thought it quite possible that the best organized and most 
honest political party may be occasionally involved in 
errors of opinion, and be seduced also into serious abuses 
of [tower; and when the particular party with which he 
chanced to stand associated has seemed to him at any 
time to be pursuing a course detrimental to the vital in- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 279 

terests of the country, ho has never heen slow in express- 
ing his decided dissent. When opposing the measures of 
an administration with which he had no political affili- 
ation, and to whose further continuance in power he was 
altogether averse, he has heen always fair and liberal, and 
on no occasion has he heen known to indulge in petty 
malevolence or low-bred chicane. I remember with much 
pleasure that in the winter of 1847-'8 he yielded a manly 
and efficient support to the war policy of President Polk ; 
and, did I choose to do so, I could easily specify numerous 
other occasions where his conduct, under circumstances 
peculiarly trying, was as notably upright and independent 
as in the instance just referred to. I believe that there is 
no doubt that Reverdy Johnson was in the early stages of 
his political career a decided and zealous Democrat, and 
that he afterward became an equally decided and zealous 
Whig, lie always openly avowed the opinion that slav- 
ery was an evil, but opposed in the most strenuous man- 
ner the efforts of extreme abolitionists to overthrow it 
by unjust and unconstitutional means. He was alike op- 
posed to consolidation and to secession. lie was a warm 
supporter of the Compromise measures of 1850, but sus- 
tained Mr. Douglas' Kansas-Nebraska bill, and opposed with 
the utmost earnestness that gigantic fraud, the Lecomp- 
ton bill. Wf had no hand in bringing on the late un- 
happy war; "nut while it was in progress he gave a firm 
and steady support to those measures which he judged 
necessary to the defense of the Government against armed 
rebellion, and to the maintenance of the Federal Union 
against all the attempts made for its overthrow. He re_ 
joiced at the return of peace, and gave his sanction to the 
efforts of the Andrew Johnson administration to carry info 
effect his well-known reconstructive policy — so far, at least, 
as he thought his recommendations judicious and author- 
ised by the Constitution. Upon the whole, perhaps no 



280 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

American statesman can be mentioned whose general 
course Las evinced less of servility to party, or a willing- 
ness to sacrifice principle to the temporary purposes of 
faction, than the venerable individual of whom I am now 
speaking. In reviewing the checkered political career 
which Reverdy Johnson has run I have been able to find 
no instance in which he has seemed to have been even for a 
single instant forgetful of the dignity of his own charac- 
ter, or regardless of his country's welfare and honor. If 
he has often felt compelled to modify hisown attitude to- 
ward the leading statesmen of the Republic, or toward 
the political parties of which they seemed to be the recog- 
nized exponents for the time being, the circumstances at- 
tendant upon such change of position on his part have 
always been such as to leave his public integrity unques- 
tioned, and to vindicate the absolute purity of his mo- 
tives. I have not had the happiness to be always in 
harmony with him touching the great public questions 
which have commanded the attention of the country dur- 
ing the last twenty-live years ; but from my earliest ac- 
quaintance with Mr. Johnson my esteem for his abilities 
and my confidence in his integrity have been constantly 
on the increase. 

Those who have read with attention the pages of Ma- 
caulay will not fail to recognize some similitude between 
the characters of Reverdy Johnson, as I have endeavored 
to portray it, and that of the celebrated Lord Halifax in 
England, who is known at different stages of his splendid 
and useful career to have co-operated sometimes with one 
of the great political parties of his day, and sometimes 
with the opposing one, according to his own conscientious 
convictions of duty at the moment, and to have evinced 
no sensitiveness whatever as to the charges to which he 
was constantly exposing himself of inconsistency and fickle- 
ness^ and which fastened upon him the appellation of "The 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 281 

Trimmer." "Instead of quarreling with hi* nickname,'' 
says Macau! ay, " he assumed it asa title of honor, and vin- 
dicated, with great vivacity, the dignity of the appellation. 
Every thing good, he said, trimmed between extremes. The 

temperate zone trims between the climate in which men 
are roasted and the climate in which they are frozen. 
The English Church trims between the Anabaptist mad- 
ness and the Papist lethargy. The English Constitution 
trims between Turkish despotism and Polish anarchy. 
Virtue is nothing but a just temper between propensities 
any one of which, if indulged to excess, becomes vice. 
Nay, the perfection of the Supreme Being himself con- 
sists in the exact equilibrium of attributes, none of which 
could preponderate without disturbing the whole moral 
and physical order of the universe." 

In concluding what I have here ventured to say of Mr. 
Johnson — whose exemption from extreme party bias has 
greatly distinguished him for many years among the illus- 
trious public men of the country— I shall take the liberty 
of repeating here what I have already published in a dif- 
ferent form as to this very interesting matter: " Those fa- 
miliar with the public career of Cicero — who was unques- 
tionably the ablest and most politic statesman of ancient 
times, and if not the first of orators, ancient or modern, 
only inferior to Demosthenes — will remember that there 
was much in his conduct at different periods which indi- 
cated that he too had learned that it was neither wise nor 
safe for a public man of great eminence and of extended 
influence to suffer any political faction, struggling fiercely 
for ascendency, to appropriate to itself exclusively his 
whole weight and influence. Accordingly, we find him 
now the champion of the Knights, now the vindicator of 
the Senate, and now again the zealous advocate of popular 
rights. While it seemed possible to effect a reconcilement 
between Pompey-and Caesar he joined the faction of neither, 



282 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

professing friendship and respect for both, and striving to 
prevent such a collision between them as would be likely 
to bring on civil war When, in spite of his efforts to 
the contrary, war between these celebrated chieftains com- 
menced, it is known that Cicero hesitated long whether 
to join one or the other of them or to remain neutral — 
as his friend Atticus so warmly advised him to do, and 
when, finally, he withdrew from Rome and sought refuse 
in Pompey's camp, he found it so utterly impossible for 
himself to play the part of a servile adherent of faction 
that he was once or twice exposed to the greatest personal 
danger from the insane violence of those who, forgetful 
of the cause of freedom, had become the willing slaves 
of him whose ruin was soon to be consummated at Phar- 
salia. Even Cato is known to have condemned him for 
not remaining upon neutral ground, so as to have it in his 
power to interpose effectively, should some favorable op- 
portunity of doing so present itself, for the restoration of 
domestic peace; and long after. Pompey had perished, 
Cicero himself more than once expressed doubt whether 
it would not have been better for Rome and the 
general interests of freedom for Caesar to have been tri- 
umphant than that he should have been compelled to suc- 
cumb to his more selfish and less magnanimous rival." 
Such a man as this could hardly have been expected to 
a give up to party what was meant for mankind, 1 ' and 
when the acrid prejudices engendered by our unhappy 
civil war shall have completely passed away, few, I am 
confident, will at all doubt that the uniform moderation 
and liberality which have so nobly marked the course of 
Keverdy Johnson for the last fifteen eventful years have 
been far more creditable both to his heart and his under- 
standing than would have been all the fleeting Gclat ac- 
quired by the shallow and heartless demagogues of vari- 



CASKET Or REMINISCENCES. 283 

our hues and complexions with whom he has beeu from 
to time more or less in contact. 

Greorge ps Badger, of North Carolina has left behind 
him a reputation for solid virtue and sound practical intel- 
lect which will probably survive as long a: this great 
Republic shall itself continue in existence. I knew him 
well, both in public and in private life His heart was 
full of kind and generous' sentiments. Through a long 
course of laborious public exertion his integrity was never 
called in question. For many years he was the acknowl- 
edged bead of the bar of North Carolina, and in the Supreme 
Court of the United States be enjoyed for a long period a 
large and lucrative practice, and sustained a very high 
character both for juridical learning and for general liter- 
ary attainments. His manner as a speaker was gentle, 
polished, and engaging. He was always perfectly familiar 
with the eases which be undertook to argue, and never 
failed to diseuss them with a clearness and force which 
was sure to command the respect and admiration of 
all who listened to him. He was always courteous and af- 
fable, and on no occasion evinced the least irritability or 
disrespect toward those with whom be was thrown into 
conflict. 

In the National Senate, where he long held a seat, he 
was always a great favorite. In that body be was not a 
very frequent speaker, but when he did participate in de- 
bate lie was ever listened to with marked respect and 
satisfaction. A truer patriot has never lived. He was 
eminently conservative in all bis opinions, and had as 
le of partisan bitterness as any man I have known. 
He commenced public life as a Federalist of the Marshall 
ami Webster school, and to the principles WvM avowed by 
hi in be ever most tenaciously adhered. J le regarded the 
dogma of secession as little less than the emanation of 
political insanity, in which respect I am inclined to think 



284 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

he did not seriously err. lie objected eveu to the Consti 
tution of the United States being called the "Federal 
Constitution," this appellation intimating, as he conceived, 
the idea ofafoedus or league between the States embraced 
in the National Union. With Mr. Webster, he insisted 
that the States of the Union were not bound together by 
a compact between them as sovereignties, but that they, 
and the people they contained, had been existing ever 
since the year 1789 under a government possessing nearly 
all the great attributes of sovereignty, and absolutely 
supreme within the sphere of its operation. No man 
struggled harder than Mr. Badger to ward off the evils of 
secession, lie stood bravely up in the Senate for many 
years as the honest and inflexible opponent of sectional 
extremists, alike of the North and of the South. When 
war came he could truthfully assert, that he had done 
nothing himself to bring it on ; and all the bloody and 
horrible scenes with which its progress was marked 
awakened in his mind sentiments of unmitigated distress 
and horror. I met with him at his own house in Raleigh, 
during the second year of the war, and had much conver- 
sation with him. lie was at that time decidedly of opin- 
ion that the conflict of arms then in progress had origi- 
nated in the most deplorable want of true statesmanship 
in several distinct quarters, and that there was nothing 
in the circumstances connected with the elevation of Mr- 
Lincoln which at all justified Mr. Davis and bis associates 
in commencing a contest that could not be otherwise than 
ruinous to the South, and dangerous to public liberty 
everywhere. The strange and unpardonable abuses of 
[tower whir!: had already occurred in Richmond filled 
him both with surprise and indignation. He never 
deemed it even possible that t\ic Stales of the South could 
succeed in establishing a separate republic; and even had 
he thought otherwise, such a consummation would have 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 2$5 

been to him anything but desirable. At the time I visited 
him last the organic convention of North Carolina was in 
session in Raleigh, and he was a member of that body. 
80 decided was he in his opposition to the despotism then 
existing in Richmond that he thought very seriously of 
introducing resolutions as a member of the convention de- 
nunciatory of the leading measures of the secession oli- 
garchy then in power, and looking to a retrocession of 
North Carolina from the Confederate alliance, in which, 
as he supposed, she had become most unwisely entangled. 
He seriously advised with me in regard to the expediency 
of this proceeding, and I confess to have counseled him 
against it — mainly though upon the ground that the 
popular mind of the South was not then prepared to sanc- 
tion a movement which I should otherwise have greatly 
rejoiced to see occur. A year after this I again visited 
this enlightened and high-spirited gentleman. A great 
and melancholy change had then recently occurred both 
in his mental and physical condition. Tie had been 
stricken with paralysis, that terrible foe to intellect, and 
his once powerful and brilliant mind had become sadly 
obscured and enfeebled. He enunciated with much diffi- 
culty ; his memory, both as to facts and words, had grown 
dim and confused, and he had been forever cut off from 
the enjoyment of that high colloquial interchange in which 
lie bad always taken so much delight. My last interview 
with this pure-minded and amiable man was to me most 
sad and affecting, and I took leave of him without the 
smallest hope of ever seeing him^agaiu on this side of the 
grave. Hequiescat in pace ! /\^ %i*e-<- 

When alluding in what has been written above to the 
interview between Mr. Badger and myself in regard to 
the propriety of his originating at that time a, reactionary 
movement in the convention of which he wns a member 
against the further submission to Confederate authorit}^ 



286 Casket of reminiscences. 

of that Commonwealth of which he was a citizen, and my 
advice to him not then to incur the dangers consequent 
upon such a proceeding, I should regret to he understood 
as being at that time at all unwilling to see such an ex- 
periment tried had there been ground for a reasonable 
hope of its success. I had long before this period become 
satisfied of the absurdity as well as of the criminality of 
all attempts to break up the Federal Union, and I had 
always been of opinion that nothing could justify armed 
opposition to the Government established by our fathers 
but the actual sufferance of "intolerable oppression. " The 
fallacious character of the extreme State-rights theory 
had been already completely demonstrated by the open 
assertion on the part of the Richmond authorities, both 
in Congress and elsewhere, of the right to prevent by 
military force, should it become necessary to resort to this 
expedient, any one or more of the States called sovereign 
from going back into the old Union, should they, or any 
one of them, judge this to be desirable ; so that the boasted 
right of secession was now virtually acknowledged, even 
by tbose in whose plodding brains it had originated, as a 
sham and a deception. Having seceded once, no further 
exertion of this sovereign right was held to be allowable! 
It is, accordingly, a well-known historic fact, which no 
truth-loving member of the late Confederate Congress wiil 
undertake to deny, that on one occasion the proposition 
was warmly urged in the popular branch of that body to 
coerce the State of North Carolina into submission to 
Confederate authority should her people undertake to re- 
scind the ordinance of secession, which had been previously 
adopted, and that when I undertook to protest, as T did, 
against the employment of military force against one of 
the States, asserted by the Confederate Constitution itself 
to be absolutely and unqualifiedly sovereign, the majority 
of the House of Representatives at once voted to go into 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 287 

secret session, in order to discuss this grave and delicate 
qiaestion with closed doors, so that they might have it in 
their power to crush alleged treason in the bud before 
those who had become restless under the unfeeling tyranny 
then in operation could even become aware of the danger 
to which they were exposing themselves. 

Surely this occurrence should of itself be sufficient to 
warn our countrymen against the perilous character of 
this secession remedy, and prevent in all coming time the 
imitation of this most mischievous and woful example. 
There is no safety to either States or people save under 
the national flag, as all will assuredly find sooner or later 
who presume to make unprovoked war against its sacred 
authority. 



288 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES* 



REMINISCENCE No. XXVIII. 

DAVIS, BENJAMIN, AND OTHERS. 

It has been thought by many that one of the most im- 
politic and censurable wars that the world has known 
was that which owed its rise recently to the vaulting am- 
bition of Louis Napoleon ; a war for the prevention of 
which that cool-headed and profound statesman, M. Thiers, 
delivered one of the most powerful, eloquent, and fearless 
speeches of his life; but, alas! in vain. The total unpre- 
paredness of France for such a conflict as she was now 
precipitated into, and the masterly preparations of every 
kind so providently made by the Prussian Government to 
meet the unauthorized invaders of her soil, constitute one 
of the most impressive and instructive chapters of modern 
history. Alter such a prodigious blunder on the part of 
a man so superior in all respects to Mr. Davis, the recent 
President of what was called "The Confederate States of 
America," it should excite less of wonder, perhaps, that 
the latter personage and his aspiring confreres should have 
so insanely urged the "cotton States" of the South into 
a war with the wisely-framed and admirably- accoutered 
Government, whose downfall they so foolishly thought il 
was in their power to accomplish. The Government so 
wantonly assailed may be set down as representing, at the 
moment when the war was initiated by Mr. Davis, the 
power and resources of nearly twenty-live millions of peo- 
ple. To the cotton States alone could the plotters of re- 
bellion look for co-operative aid ; and, making allowance 
for the strength of the Union element existing in all the 
States of the South from the beginning to the end of this 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 28§ 

unhappy contest, and for that of the African elemenl 
also, which all discerning men foresaw from the begin- 
ning, should the conflict be at all prolonged, would he 
infallibly wielded against the Southern claim to inde- 
pendence, no one can suppose that as many as five mil- 
lions of people could at any time have been found, during 
the four years of terrible suffering through which it was 
the fate of the unhappy and deluded South to pass, (in- 
cluding men, women, and children,) whose hearts could 
be regarded as warmly enlisted in a cause having so little 
in it to command respect and awaken sympathy among 
those who had no hand in- the origination of hostilities. 
Besides, the strong-willed and resolute men whom the 
rash and improvident Southern Senators and Representa- 
tives had left behind them in Washington city, hencefor- 
ward to wield all the thunders of State without serious 
let or embarrassment from any quarter, were possessed of 
a considerable force of regular soldiers, besides the navy, 
and abundant resources of every kind for the purposes of 
self-defense and for the prosecution of warlike enterprises 
in any quarter, whether on land or water, while all the 
States of the old world were open to them, and the sym- 
pathizers with free government everywhere would be 
ready to send to them the most ample supplies of all 
kinds that might be needed — while there were millions 
of soldiers beyond the ocean who only awaited the recep- 
tion of a friendly invitation to fly across thedeep in order 
to aid in defending that national emblem for the support 
of which our fathers had nearly a century before so sol- 
emnly pledged their " lives, their fortunes, and their sacred 
honor." 

If the disparity between the parties to this war was so 

marked in the respects specified, how much must that 

disparity have been aggravated by Mr. Davis'own gross and 

now ascertained incompetency, and the singular and in- 

19r 



290 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

deed almost ludicrous imbecility of nearly all those whom 
he soon called around him as his Cabinet counselors, or 
placed in the most responsible positions connected with 
the military and naval movements needful to be carried 
forward ! But Mr. Davis and his official associates had 
no correct conception of the true character and dimen- 
sions of the war into which they had so hastily plunged, 
as was afterward in fact confessed in many a lugubrious 
harangue, and in more than one whining; official docu- 
ment. These gentlemen did not believe that the conflict 
would endure for a twelvemonth, and they were even 
weak enough to calculate strongly upon Northern aid, 
Ex- President Pierce and several others, whose letters to 
Mr. Davis have recently seen the light, having shamefully 
plied this most gullible personage with secret promises of 
support ; upon which he had built his hopes of one day 
wielding an imperial scepter. As to the interposition of 
foreign Powers in behalf of the now belligerent States of 
the South, though many deceitful assurances were received 
from abroad at different periods of the contest, no one of 
sound intellect anywhere now supposes that either the 
French or the English Government ever thought of em- 
broiling itself in a transatlantic civic feud, a formal enlist- 
ment in which would, in all probability, bring upon it 
swift and assured destruction. The vain and shallow- 
minded Davis evidently thought far otherwise as to this 
matter when he spoke at Jackson, Miss., just before leaving 
that place for the city of Montgomery, where he had been 
chosen President of the Confederate States, thus: " Eng- 
land will not allow our great staples to be dammed up 
within our present limits. The starving thousands in 
their midst would not allow it. We have nothing to 
apprehend from blockade. But if they attempt invasion 
by land we must take the war out of our territory. If war 
must come it must be upon Northern and not upon South- 



CASKET OF tlEMINISCENCES. 291 

era soil." So thought the boasting Napoleon the Little 
when he dashed forth so chivalrously from Paris to be- 
siege Berlin ! 

When Mr. Davis reached Stevenson, on his way to 
Montgomery, he said: 

"Your border States will gladly come into our Southern Confed- 
eracy in sixty days, as we will be their only friends. England will 
recognize us, and a glorious future is before us. The grass will grow 
in the Northern cities where the pavements have been worn off by 
the tread of commerce. We will carry war where it is easy to advance; 
where food for the sword and torch awaits our armies in the densely 
populated cities; and though they (the enemy) may come and spoil our 
Crops, we 3an raise them as before, while they can not rear the cities 
which took years of industry and millions of money to build." 

It was in this spirit that Mr. Davis' Secretary of War, 
Mr. Walker, on the night after the storming of Fort Sum- 
ter, declared publicly that " the Confederate flag would 
be soon seen flying from the top of the American Capi- 
tol." 

It is not possible that I should cherish reminiscences of 
any kind connected with the conventional or govern- 
mental proceedings in Montgomery. I thank heaven 
that I was not a member of that ill-assorted convention. 
I am equally thankful that I was not among those who 
inspired the action of the new Government of Montgom- 
ery. Tennessee, of which State I have been a resident for 
fifteen years past, had not then become engulfed in the 
whirlpool of rebellion. Had Virginia remained firm she 
never would have been. By what means Mr. Davis man- 
aged to become President I never exactly knew, though 
I have learned through quite a direct channel that he re- 
ceived for this office in the convention in which he was 
chosen a majority of one voteonly over Howell Cobb,of Geor- 
gia. He was only elected to the place of Provisional 
President. Had not hostilities been actually commenced 
at once he would certainly have been beaten in the popu- 



292 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

lar election which afterward occurred. It was, therefore, 
all-important to him that the war should be begun as 
soon as possible, for nothing could be more certain than 
that the election of a new executive chief in the midst of 
war would not be deemed safe or prudent. Hence the 
precipitate order to lire on Fort Sumter which was dis- 
patched to Charleston. 

And now the state of war virtual ly placed everything 
in Mr. Davis' incompetent hands. The border States, as 
had been so often predicted, were, one after another, with 
oue or two exceptions, dragged into the contest. 

Having no respect for Mr. Davis' capacity ; having not 
the least confidence in his sincerity and manliness ; know- 
ing him to be vain, selfish, overbearing, ambitious, in- 
triguing, and a slave to his prejudices and partialities: 
not having had the least personal intercourse with him at 
that time for years ; knowing well that he had cherished 
an undying hatred for me ever since I had beaten him for 
the office of Governor of Mississippi in 1851, and had 
thus aided in thwarting the scheme which he and others 
had then set on foot to withdraw the Southern States from 
the Federal Union, it may seem a little surprising to some 
thai T should have consented to occupy for a moment a 
seat in the Confederate Congress. But it was mainly be- 
cause I entertained such an unfavorable opinion of Mr. 
Davis, and because I painfully distrusted his aims and 
purposes, that I was willing to come near to him in an 
official capacity ; that thus I might have it in my power 
to keep watch over all his movements, and aid as far as 
might be possible in disappointing his projects of personal 
ambition. I certainly intended to give a faithful and 
true support to the Confederate cause after I had become 
enlisted in it, as I indisputably did ; but I did not intend 
to let Mr. Davis become an emperor if I could prevent it, 
nor allow his servitors in Congress to organize a military 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 298 

despotism in Richmond upon the false pretext that they 
were extreme devotees to State rights and to Southern 
independence. In point of fact I was never at the Presi 
dential Mansion once during my four years' stay in Rich- 
mond, and not a day passed while I occupied a seat in 
the Confederate Congress that was not more or less sig- 
nalized by my vehement opposition to Mr. Davis and to 
most of the members of his infamous Cabinet, whom I 
well knew to be absolute slaves to his will — mercenary to 
unscrupulousness ; corrupt, and contemptible. Almost 
every day I felt that my life was in danger; but every 
day I was more and more zealous in my opposition to Mr. 
Davis and his favorite measures of policy, and to the cor- 
rupt and profligate schemes of his special friends and sup- 
porters. It is eminently painful to me to speak of these 
things, but the time has come when the truth must be 
told. A great experiment of States-right secession has 
been made, and it is important that the world should 
know precisely what baneful consequences resulted from 
this experiment, in order that no such insane and deplora- 
ble attempt shall again be essayed in any part of this 
"broad Union, and in order that all may be solemnly 
warned not to take even the first step toward that evil 
state of things which was soon to be realized in Rich- 
mond. I do not believe that a more heartless and grind- 
ing despotism has been anywhere known since the days 
of Dionysius of Syracuse than the one there set on foot. 
Upon the pretext of military necessity all power was con- 
centrated in the hands of Mr. Davis and his myrmidons, 
and not a particle of this power was intrusted to them 
that they did not criminally and corruptly transcend and 
abuse. By a shameful act of servility Mr. Davis was 
given authority to suspend the great charter of liberty 
whenever and wherever he pleased, and this was done on 
his own earnest solicitation. A lull was passed called the 



294 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

" Forcible Impressment Law," which placed all the means 
of subsistence for men and domestic animals completely 
under the control of Mr. Davis and his official servitors, a 
large proportion of whom were dishonest and oppressive 
beyond anything which can be conceived of, save by those 
who came in contact with that terrible system of fraud 
and violence which they introduced. A conscription law 
was passed which brought under Mr. Davis' command 
every able-bodied man in the South between the ages of 
sixteen and forty-five ; and all who refused to serve in the 
Confederate army against the paternal government of 
their lathers were subject to be shot as for desertion. 
When the 'hill for this purpose was upon its passage I 
offered thirteen different amendments to it intended to cor- 
rect palable unconstitutionalities ; and all these were rapidly 
voted down; when, together with only a small number of 
others, I voted against the measure. This law of con- 
scription was most rigorously and cruelly enforced, and 
was the cause, not only of very general popular disgust, 
but the fatal enfeeblement of the Confederate army by 
actual desertion. A sweeping confiscation act was passed, 
designed to take away all the property of those who any- 
where within the limits of the Confederate States did not 
give open countenance and support to the cause of the 
rebellion. This law was afterward so amplified and ex- 
tended by amendment, at the instance of Mr. Perkins, of 
Louisiana — a special devotee and confidant of Mr. Davis — 
as to embrace the property of men, women, and children, 
wheresoever located, that might chance to be then absent, 
who, holding property in the South, did not immediately 
return within the confines of the Confederate States and 
take an active part in the war. When this most nefa- 
rious amendment was under consideration I earnestly pro- 
tested against it, and brought to the attention of the 
mover that such men as the venerable Dr. Duncan and 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 295 

Leveu P. Marshal], of New York, both formerly of Mis- 
sissippi, would be stripped by this law of the most of what 
they were worth, though their age and other causes had 
prevented their taking any decided interest in the war ; 
to which Mr. Perkins responded that it was just such 
men as these that he wished to bring within the opera- 
tion of the law I then ventured to mention that there 
were two most amiable and accomplished ladies of the 
city of Nashville — Mrs. Porter, the daughter of the ven- 
erable Felix Grundy, and Mrs. Player, the stepdaughter 
of John Bell — who would be ruined by this law ; for one 
of them was in Philadelphia and the other in Hartford, 
for the education of their children respectively ; when I 
was again answered that it was precisely such cases as 
those described by me which it was desired to reach. 
And so this law passed ; and had the Confederate cause 
triumphed, and Mr. Davis been continued in power, verily 
it would have been enforced to the letter! 

At last a member from Mississippi came one morning 
into the House of Representatives and offered a bill for 
adoption which proposed the immediate and universal 
establishment of martial law, and for an indefinite period of 
time, and this movement was notoriously inspired by Mr. 
Davis himself. I got up immediately and denounced it 
as a cold-blooded and unprincipled attempt to establish 
an armed despotism, at which the proposer grew affrighted. 
He came into the House next morning and asked to be 
allowed to withdraw it ; but, as I made stern objection 
to this, it was not withdrawn, and now remains a perma- 
nent monument of infamy and reproach. A slavish Con- 
gress even went so far in its devotion to Mr. Davis as to 
adopt a passport law, making it criminal even for a mem- 
ber of Congress to leave Richmond except under the sign- 
manual of Juclah P. Benjamin, Mr. Davis' Secretary of 
State, and the known writer of his executive messages. 



296 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

A few months before this evil apparition of a Govern- 
ment, built upon the basis of extreme States' rights and 
secession, broke up, a bill or resolution was introduced 
and passed unanimously in the Confederate Senate, pro- 
viding for the payment of $7,000 in gold to Mr. Jefferson 
Davis as part of his presidential salary of $25,000. This was 
evidently intended as a preliminary step toward paying the 
whole $25,000 in gold thereafter. The bill had been 
under consideration in the body where it originated for 
several days, and had been much discussed in the Rich- 
mond newspapers, so that Mr. Davis was bound to know 
that it was before Congress. By existing law his salary 
was payable alone in Confederate paper, and such was the 
distinct understanding when his second election occurred. 
His remarkable physiognomy stood visibly impressed upon 
every Confederate note, so that the payment of his salary 
in anything but Confederate paper was fatally to discredit 
the only currency we had. Mr. Davis had a dwelling- 
house supplied to him; and furniture, fuel, and provision 
for some six horses at the Government's expense. The 
members of Congress were content to receive as the re- 
compense of their legislative labors Confederate money, 
though it was now worth only ten cents on the dollar. 
The Confederate soldiers would have been o-]ad to get their 
own wretched pay in the paper currency, but could not 
even get that. The poor fellows were, most of them, in 
rags and barefoot. When this legislative monstrum hor- 
rendum reached the Douse, I rose in my place, and said that 
I would move a test vote; I wished to know how many 
men there were slavish and corrupt enough to vote for 
so infamous a measure, and I moved to put it on the tabic, 
calling for the yeas and nays. To the honor of the body, 
be it spoken, only seven persons had the unblushing audae*- 
ity to vote yea ! Some of these, I learn, are now com- 
plaining most vehemently that the Congress of the United 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 1^>7 

States recently increased the President's salary from 
|35,000 to $50,000, though every man of sense knows 
that $50,000 will hardly go as far as $10,000 would have 
done, in the purchase of the necessaries of life, in the days 
of our earlier Presidents. 

I have not stated a hundredth part of the enormities 
the enactment of which I was daily compelled to witness 
in Richmond. I hope never to be compelled to detail all 
I witnessed there. I shall spend no time upon Mr. Davis' 
cruel persecution of such meritorious officers as Joe John- 
ston, Beauregard, Gustavus Smith, Stonewall Jackson, 
and others; nor shall I explain here how the last-men- 
tioned personage was prevented from retiring abruptly 
from the Confederate service, as a consecpience of the con- 
tinued annoyances to which he w r as subjected, by the 
special interposition of the Virginia Legislature. ^S r or 
need I expatiate here upon Mr. Davis' unpardonable ad- 
herence to such men as Bra*™ and Ilindman, both of 
whom, as I repeatedly proved in Congress, by irrefutable 
testimony, were covered thickly with the blood of inno- 
cent men whom they had murdered deliberately and with- 
out the least authority even of what we at that time re- 
cognized as law. Nor shall I advert to the fact that Mr. 
Davis had notoriously kept in the office of Commissary 
General, in opposition to almost universal public senti- 
ment, the infamous JNorthup, a man once confined in a 
mad-house, and then obviously in an unsound state of 
mind, whose administration of the commissary depart- 
ment had been such as almost to break up the army by 
starvation, and that in spite of all the exposures which I 
had from time to time made of his malefactions he still held 
on to him until he could get no respectable person to hold 
the Secretaryship of War, except on the condition of this 
man's removal. These are indeed most painful reminis- 



298 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

cences, a minute record of which would only awaken 
profitless disgust and horror. 

At length the time came when there was no longer ground 
for rational hope that the Confederate' cause could he 
upheld for even three months longer. On consultation 
with several of the ablest and most worthy military com- 
manders in and about Richmond, as to the possibility of 
our continuing to hold out against the overwhelming 
Union force then in the neighborhood of Richmond, these 
gentlemen all expressed the opinion that the success of 
the Confederate cause had become utterly hopeless. I 
then went into the Confederate Congress, armed in full 
proof as to this matter, and urged that Mr. Davis should 
be at once and urgently requested to open negotiations for 
peace. I even went so far as to show to that body that 
if peace were then asked for it could be at once obtained, 
and on honorable terms at the hands of Mr. Lincoln ; and 
that should we defer action on this subject until the month 
of March, 1865 — three months thereafter — 'the Congress 
just elected, who would then come into power, would be 
sure to exact terms far more harsh and rigorous than 
those which Mr. Lincoln was then inclined to exact. I 
urged that those who now persevered in continuing a 
hopeless war would make themselves responsible for all 
the precious blood that might be thereafter shed. But I 
should have talked with about as much effect if I had 
been addressing the dead. 

In despair of obtaining peace by any other means I 
consulted with a majority of my own colleagues in Con- 
gress from Tennessee, and with their full sanction I deter- 
mined to set off for Washington, in order to ascertain 
from Mr. Lincoln's own lips what conditions of peace he 
would be willing to accord to us. If just and honorable 
terms should be named to me I was to bring back these 
terms to Richmond, divulge them there, and appeal to 
the people of the South, at their homes, and to our sol- 



CASKET OF KEMIN1SCENCES. 209 

diers in camp, to put an end to the further effusion of 
blood, whether Mr. Davis wished it or not. I knew that 
this experiment would be a perilous one, but I resolved to 
undertake it at all hazards. There was no other course 
left, for I perfectly well knew that Mr. Davis would never 
make peace except on the basis of Southern independence. 
Still, if independence should at last be secured, he ex- 
pected his temples to be encased in an imperial crown, 
and that he, Louis Napoleon, and some Emperor on Mex- 
ican soil acting under Napoleonic direction, would there- 
after control the destinies of two hemispheres. As to Mr. 
Davis' own hopes and plans, as well as the earnest wishes 
of his admiring and confidential friends, I could not have 
the least doubt. 

How, after I left Richmond, Mr. Davis was persuaded 
to send three commissioners down the James river to meet 
Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward, in order to treat of peace ; 
how Mr. Lincoln offered terms to which the South could 
have honorably acceded — terms, embracing universal am- 
nesty, and perhaps a good deal more; how, when these 
commissioners returned to Richmond and were refused 
permission to divulge the favorable language used by 
J 'resident Lincoln in his interview with them, for fear 
that Congress and the country might consent to peace on 
the terms proposed ; what arts were used to blind and 
fleceive the people of the South in regard to the scene be- 
tween Mr. Lincoln and the peace commissioners at the 
mouth of the James river — all with a view of keeping up 
the war spirit ; how, after the lapse of a week or two, the 
Confederate Congress, at last finding out Mr. Davis' true 
character and becoming satisfied of his utter incompetency, 
by a sort of coup d'etat, stripped him of all military power 
and substituted for him in regard to the management of 
all military affairs the noble and high-minded Lee, I shall 
leave to be more fully explained by others ; the same not 
being strictly a subject of my own personal reminiscence. 



300 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



REMINISCENCE No. XXIX. 

MR. LINCOLN MR. DAVIS THE PEACE COMMISSIONERS MR. 

STEPHENS' DISCLOSURES. 

Since the days of Sesostris no war has occurred so im- 
portant, alike in its character and its consequences, as 
that which was brought to an end on the soil of America 
eight years ago; and those who won renown in that war, 
either as sage and patriotic statesmen, or as brave, ener- 
getic, skillful, yet upright, humane, and magnanimous 
com m and ers of armies, may be well regarded as having, 
by their commingled wisdom and valor, secured to them- 
selves the respect and admiration of the present and of all 
future generations. Surely the time will come, and I 
would tain believe that it is even now not far distant, 
when all those who honestly and energetically toiled in 
this struggle — who wisely thought and boldly and elo- 
quently spoke or wrote touching the grand questions con- 
nected with its rise and progress — or who incurred all the 
dangers and discomforts of a war so wasting and sanguin- 
ary, under the undoubting conviction that they were 
moving forward in the pathway of duty, will he univer- 
sally recognized as entitled to the affectionate esteem and 
reverence of all who are capable of duly estimating pure 
and elevated motives of action, and those high-souled and 
manly achievements to which such motives alone can 
prompt. That there were men of high ability and of emi- 
nent moral worth on the one side and on the other in this 
great and memorable contest, and that there were, like- 
wise evil-disposed and profligate monsters in human shape 
as well among the supporters of the cause which ulti- 



CASKET OP REMINtSCENCKS. SOI 

mately triumphed, and which ought to have triumphed, 

as in the less numerous and less fortunate ranks of its ad- 
versaries, no liberal-spirited and enlightened man hasever 
yet doubted ; and, indeed, to deny the truth of this propo- 
sition would be alike unjust to meritorious personages, 
many of whom now slumber in the grave, and to the hard- 
won honor of the American people themselves, now, thank 
Ilea ven ! once more united by ties of mutual amity and 
confidence which, I trust, will never be again either burst 
asunder or seriously enfeebled. 

Few can be now so blind as not to perceive that, had 
this great Republic been permanently dissevered, perpetual 
border wars would have been inevitable ; that large stand- 
ing armies would have been organized on either side of 
the line of territorial separation, and that ultimately — 
perchance after centuries of anarchy and bloodshed — the 
complete extinction of republican institutions in this 
hemisphere and the establishment of several military des- 
potisms in its stead, as grinding and oppressive as the 
world has known, would have taken place. The bringing 
of this fearful struggle of arms to a peaceful close, in a 
manner consistent both with the preservation of the Fed- 
eral Union and the continued existence of popular freedom, 
may be therefore justly recognized as a result over which 
the friends of constitutional liberty throughout the world 
might be expected to rejoice. 

In the summer and autumn of 1864 the absolute neces- 
sity of an early peace began to be deeply felt throughout 
the States of the South. Lee, after a succession of as 
bloody and destructive battles as any on record, had been 
driven with his gallant but almost ruined army to the 
neighborhood of Petersburg, where he was still doing 
what he could, with his greatly inferior forces, to hold 
Grant in check and save Richmond from the grasp oi this 
able and enterprising commander. Joe Johnston, for two 



302 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

months, at the head of one of the most gallant armies 
that has ever contended for victory upon a field of battle, 
had been able to retard the advance of Sherman upon 
Atlanta. How much longer he might have succeeded in 
doing so had not Jeff Davis, with a most stupict and blun- 
dering audacity, removed him, can not now be determined. 
Hood, who had been substituted for Johnston, after hav- 
ing been signally defeated by Sherman, yielded up Atlanta, 
retreated toward Newnan, and undertook, under the di- 
rection of the enterprising chief of the Confederate cause, 
his famous and most disastrous Tennessee campaign. 
Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina all lay now 
exposed to immediate invasion, and Sherman soon com- 
menced his fearful march toward the sea-shore. It was 
plain to almost eveiy man in Richmond that whenever 
GTeneral Sherman should advance through the States just 
mentioned, and reach, in his victorious march, the neigh- 
borhood of Richmond, Lee would be compelled to surren- 
der. Such innumerable blunders had been committed 
under the management of the shallow and egotistical Da- 
vis during the immediately preceding twelve months, in 
the administration, both of civil and military affairs, that 
only a few individuals, of an over-hopeful temperament, 
then supposed it possible that the struggle could possibly 
last beyond the first of the coming May. When General 
Joseph E. Johnston returned from the South, after hav- 
ing been so unwisely deprived of his command by Mr. 
Davis, I made it my business to consult him formally in 
regard to the possibility of continuing the war then in 
progress, under the disadvantageous circumstances at that 
time existing. This able and renowned commander spoke 
with the most perfect frankness upon the subject, and de- 
clared that the prolongation of the war would evidently 
depend upon the rapidity or tardiness of Sherman's move- 
ments, and that whenever he should get within the cou 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 303 

fines of Virginia the fall of Richmond must necessarily 
occur. I asked him whether he at all doubted — now that 
the army which he had lately commanded was sent, ap- 
parently, on an objectless mission to Tennessee — that 
Sherman would be able to march, almost without inter- 
ruption, through Georgia, South 'Carolina, and North 
Carolina, to the southern boundary of Virginia. He an- 
swered promptly that he did not. Then it was that I re- 
solved to make a last desperate effort in the Confederate 
Congress to obtain the adoption of a resolution asserting 
the necessity of taking immediate steps toward securing 
a just and honorable peace. The difficulties which I en- 
countered on this occasion I have already heretofore suffi- 
ciently explained. 

Several months before this period, having discovered, on 
reading the Washington newspapers, that the attempt to 
establish an imperial government in Mexico was awaken- 
ing great opposition in the two houses of the National 
Legislature, and that a good deal had been said by seve- 
ral members of that body in support of the celebrated 
Monroe doctrine, it seemed to me that an opportunity 
was presented of paving the way to the restoration of 
amicable relations between the people of the North and 
those of the South by a formal assertion in the Confed- 
erate Congress of the great American principle which 
constituted the leading feature of that same doctrine. 
Accordingly I introduced a series of resolutions on this 
subject, and delivered in support of them a long and zeal- 
ous speech. These resolutions were referred to the Commit- 
tee on Foreign Affairs, where they met with most serious 
opposition from a very unexpected quarter — Mr. William 
C. Rives, the chairman of the committee, expressing the 
most decided objection to the proposed movement. 

This action on the part of Mr. Hives was the more sur- 
prising to me by reason of the fact that lie had formerly, 



304 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

when in the National House of Representatives, been a 
very warm supporter of the Monroe doctrine. With a 
view to counteracting his influence I got a copy of the 
speech which he had delivered on this subject more than 
twenty years previous, and read several extracts from it 
in the hearing of the body of which we were both of us 
then members. I regret to say that this conduct of mine 
gave this worthy and accomplished gentleman some 
offense, which I am sure was not at all intended- by me. 
I seize the opportunity of saying here that Mr. Rives, at 
this period of his life, was in feeble health, seemed to 
labor under something like habitual depression of spirits, 
and had to a great extent lost that energy of character 
for which in earlier life he had been given so much credit. 
lie had evidently ceased to have much confidence in his 
own mental resources, and, greatly to the astonishment of 
many, became in a few weeks after he had taken his seat 
among us a thorough devotee of Mr. Davis and a sup- 
porter of nearly all his eccentric and fanciful notions. 
His principal speech in the House of Representatives was 
made in support of the proposition to give Mr. Davis un- 
limited power to suspend the writ of habeas corpus when- 
ever and wherever he pleased. This veteran statesman 
was immediately responded to by Colonel Baldwin, of 
Staunton, in one of the clearest, most manly, and eloquent 
speeches 1 ever heard, during the progress of which Mr." 
Rives evinced a marked restlessness and chagrin which 
it was really painful to behold. It is but just to this last- 
named gentleman to state that about the period of the 
arrival of the well-known Francis P. Blair in Richmond, 
upon his most humane and patriotic mission of pacifica- 
tion, he began to express himself much more approvingly 
of the Monroe doctrine. Whether this was owing to Mr. 
Blair's inspiration or to some other cause T have never 
been able to learn. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 305 

Anterior to my own departure from Richmond in quest 
of peace, and at the most gloomy and alarming period in 
the history of the Confederate struggle, one or two inci- 
dents occurred which, though perhaps not very important 
in themselves, it will be proper here to mention. Know- 
ing Mr. Stephens' opposition to several of the leading 
measures recommended by Mr. Davis, and having good 
reason to believe that he was beginning to be seriously 
distrustful as to the result of the war, I visited him one 
evening for the purpose of holding with him, should he 
choose to allow it, a full and frank conference. He re- 
ceived me with much civility, and entered into a conver- 
sation with me, touching the existing condition of affairs, 
which I can never forget. He did not hestitate to declare 
his painful want of confidence in Mr. Davis' capacity, and 
declared in very emphatic language the apprehension 
which he began to feel that, unless more statesmanship 
should be displayed, the war must soon terminate in dis- 
appointment and disgrace. I then ventured to suggest to 
him that, as Mr. Davis and his confidential advisers 
seemed not to be at all aware of the real dangers of the 
moment, and were evidently averse to all movements 
looking to the restoration of peace, there was no possi- 
bility of bringing the war to an end unless some man of 
known character and influence would take upon himself 
the responsibility of proceeding to Washington for the 
purpose of ascertaining whether Mr. Lincoln and his Cab- 
inet would not be willing to grant terms of reconcilement 
to the Southern States and people to which they could, 
without loss of honor, accede. I even went so far on this 
occasion as to avow to him my conviction that he was 
himself the man who, above all others, would be most 
suitable to undertake this dangerous and important em- 
bassy, adding that if he could bring back with him a 
guarantee as to the future such as T was well satisfied 
20 r 



306 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

. 

Mr. Lincoln would be willing to give, I did not at all 
doubt that the States and people of the South would at 
once desist from the further prosecution of the war, what- 
ever might be the views and wishes of Mr. Davis, who, it 
was evident, would never consent to any peace which 
would deprive him of the power and official consequence 
which he was then enjoying. Though Mr. Stephens did 
not in terms dissent from the views which I had deemed 
it my duty to enunciate, yet his caution was such that he 
did not by any means so far commit himself as to author- 
ize anything like a confident hope that he would himself 
undertake the high and perilous task to which I had in- 
vited him ; so I took my leave of this sagacious, upright, 
and over-fastidious statesman ; nor did I see him again 
until the war was over, when I found him in Washing- 
ton as a Senator-elect from Georgia, seeking admission to 
a position which he would doubtless have much adorned 
had he been once firmly seated as a member of that dig- 
nified body, where there are so many and such powerful 
incentives constantly supplied to the pursuance of a calm, 
dignified, and truly conservative course. 

It was early in the month of January, 1865, that the 
venerable Francis P. Blair reached the city of Richmond. 
A man better suited in all respects than this gentleman 
for the delicate and difficult duty which he had so gen- 
erously assumed could not well be imagined. He was, 
and is yet, a person of most active and vigorous intellect; 
of long and varied public experience, possessing a pro- 
found knowledge of human nature, and capable in an 
eminent degree of adapting himself to the peculiar tem- 
pers and tastes of those with whom he may be thrown 
into contact. He knew Jefferson Davis well, perhaps no 
man knew him better, and was, of course, cognizant of 
his extreme selfishness of character, his insatiable ambi- 
tion, his surpassing vanity, and his extreme tenacity of 



OASKKT Otf KKMlNrSCKNCES. -WH 

power. Mr. Blair hoped that in the then almost ruined 
condition of Confederate affairs lie might tind it possible 
to win Mr. Davis over to the side of peace by opening to 
him an opportunity of ending the war with credit to 
himself and his associates, and of taking a conspicuous 
part in the acquisition of the vast territorial domain then 
in the lawless occupancy of the imperial autocrat, Maxi- 
milian, who had been foisted by the criminal machina- 
tions of Louis Napoleon upon a, reluctant but powerless 
people. Had Mr. Blair known at the time how deeply 
and irretrievably committed Mr. Davis and his especial ser- 
vitors in Eichmond were to the ambitious schemes of the 
French Emperor, and that our executive chief was him- 
self confidently expecting that the time would yet arrive 
when .Napoleon the Little, Maximilian the Unfortunate, 
and Jefferson Davis the Equivocator, would, by conjoint 
and consociated rule, control the destiny of two hemis- 
pheres, he would hardly have expected to succeed in his 
noble and well-planned mission. Mr. Stephens, in the 
second volume of that very remarkable book which he 
has lately given to the public, reveals many particulars 
connected with this epoch, of which, before its appear- 
ance, but few had become authentically advised. He 
says, in relation to the appearance of Mr. Blair in Rich- 
mond at the time referred to: 

The arrival of this distinguished personage, who was unquestionably 

the real J J \irwick of the party then in power at Washington, caused no 
little sensation. What could have brought him there? and what was 
his business:' These were the inquiries of almost every one. He was 
immediately in close and private conversation with Mr. Davis. After 
remaining a few days he returned. Nothing, however, touching the 
object of his visit escaped from the Executive closet, or got to the pub- 
lic in any way. The surprise occasioned by his first visit was even 
increased by a second a tew days afterward. He was again in consul- 
tation with Mr. Davis, and again returned. The same mystery con- 
tinued to hung over the object of his mission. 

Mr. Stephens then goes on to say that it was." in these 



308 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

interviews between Mr. Davis and Mr. Blair that the 
Hampton Roads conference originated." He further 
states that " on the day after Mr. Blair's final departure 
he was himself sent for by Mr. Davis, with a request to 
meet him at a stated hour, on special and important busi- 
ness." This message " came through Mr. Hunter,"' as Mr. 
Stephens says, who was doubtless Mr. Davis' sole confi- 
dential adviser at this juncture, and who was as much 
averse as Mr. Davis himself to any pacification with the 
Government of the United States which should be based 
upon a frank and loyal submission to the constituted au- 
thorities of the Republic. Neither of these gentlemen 
intended, before they should be forced to do so, to yield 
up the chimerical and fantastic project of a separate and 
independent republic, founded upon the absurd and im- 
practicable dogma of secession. Neither of them had the 
least idea of confessing the grievous political errors which 
they had been committing, and abandoning the execution 
of a scheme of separate empire for which they had been 
both active and insidiously plotting for some twenty 
years or more. How could they be expected to give their 
adhesion to the Monroe doctrine, when this would bring 
the Confederate armies into collision with those of Maxi- 
milian and Napoleon, for whose ultimate aid they were 
confidently looking in the struggle which was then going 
on with the wise and paternal Government of Washing- 
ton? 

In the interview between Mr. Stephens and Mr. Davis, 
which afterward occurred, as Mr. Stephens tells us, Mr. 
Davis made known to him that "Mr. Blair, in a verbal 
and most confidential manner, had suggested to him a 
course by which a suspension of hostilities might be 
effected. This was to be done by a secret military conven- 
tion, between the belligerents, embracing another object, 
which was the maintenance of the Monroe doctrine, in 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 309 

the prevention of the establishment of the then projected 
empire in Mexico by France. Mr. Davis stated that Mr. 
Blair had given it as his opinion that the result of what 
he proposed would be the ultimate restoration of the 
Union, which he greatly desired, and that it was much 
more in accordance with his wishes that it should be 
effected in this way than by a continued prosecution of 
the war to its extreme results." 

No one can read Mr. Stephens 1 account of this inter- 
view without coming to the conclusion that Mr. Davis' 
only object in pursuing the course adopted by him at this 
juncture was to secure a cessation of hostilities until he 
could in some way replenish the Confederate armies, and 
obtain military aid from France, also through Mexico, 
concerning which there was much talk at the time in 
Richmond, as well as of obtaining the aid of thirty thou- 
sand Poles, for whose co-operation active negotiations had 
been for some time going on. Whether Mr. Stephens 
supposed that Mr. Davis was himself sincere in entering 
into the discussions with Mr. Blair which have been 
referred to it is difficult at present to. determine. But 
that Mr. Davis, when he agreed to send commissioners to 
the Hampton Roads meeting, had no idea that any result 
would be attained beyond the temporary armistice which 
he so much desired, is made evident by various facts, 
among which may be mentioned the following: First, 
the letter of Mr. Davis of the 12th of January, 1865, to 
Mr. Blair, (which was to be shown to Mr. Lincoln on his 
return to Washington,) concludes with this remarkable 
sentence: " Notwithstanding the rejection of our former 
offers, I would, if you could promise that a commission, 
minister, or other agent would be received, appoint one 
immediately, and renew the effort to enter into a confer- 
ence with a view to secure peace to the two countries." 

This is, perhaps, one of the most puerile and contempti- 



310 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

ble devices ever resorted to, even by this Prince of Man- 
agers, in order to delude an honest and confiding Chief 
Magistrate. Could he have secured a letter or declara- 
tion from Mr. Lincoln recognizing the existence of " two 
countries,'' instead of one undivided and indivisible Re- 
public, why then he would have obtained for the Confed- 
erate Government just such an attitude before the civil- 
ized Powers of the world as would have justified him in 
asking immediate recognition at their hands. To have 
supposed it possible to entrap two such astute personages 
as Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward by so clumsy an expe- 
dient argues a want of discernment calculated to awaken 
both pity and contempt. Mr. Lincoln's response to this 
(addressed also to Mr. Blair) is truly a masterpiece. 
Here it is : 

Washington, January, 1865. 
F. P. Blair, Esq.: 

Sir : You having shown me Mr. Davis' letter to you of the 12th in- 
stant, you may say to han that I have constantly been, am now, and 
shall continue ready to receive anyagenl whom he or any other person 
now resisting the national authority may informally send inc. with a 
view of securing peace to our common conn try. 

Second. The second conclusive proof that Mr. Davis 
was not expecting or desiring peace on the basis of a 
restoration of the Union is supplied by the characteristic 
letter of instruction given to the three commissioners dis- 
patched by him to Hampton Roads. It runneth thus: 

Richmond, January 28, tsfio. 

In conformity with the letter of Mr. Lincoln, of which the foregoing 
is a copy, yon are to proceed to Washington city for an informal con- 
ference with him upon the issues involved in the existing war, and tor 
the purpose of securing peace to the two countries. 

"Still harping on my daughter!" Now, Mr. Davis 
knew perfectly well when he sent bis three commissioners 
to Hampton Roads that there was no possibility of peace 
except on the basis of submission to the authority of the 
Federal Government. He knew that Mr. Lincoln had 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 311 

put his foot firmly down on that important point. He 
knew further that were Mr. Lincoln even to violate his 
oath of office, and abnegate all his antecedent declarations 
on this subject, it would not be in his power to liberate 
the people of the South from the obligation of obedience 
to the Constitution and laws of the Union ; and yet did 
Mr. Davis deliberately tie up the hands of his commis- 
sioners in regard to this all vital matter. He gave them 
no power to treat except upon the basis of Southern inde- 
pendence. It is really wonderful how it happened that 
two such high-minded and enlightened statesmen as Mr. 
Stephens and Judge Campbell accepted so humiliating a 
position at the hands of a cold-blooded and unscrupulous 
political hypocrite. The conduct of Mr. Hunter was in. 
deed in character. He had been a secessionist- of the most 
extreme type from the days of early manhood. He had 
foisted Davis upon the Pierce administration with a view 
to strengthening the secession faction of the South by the 
bestowal upon them of official patronage. He had never 
ventured to think for himself in opposition to Mr. 
Davis from the beginning of the war up to that very mo- 
ment. He was, indeed, a man of considerable accomplish- 
ments, not at all deficient, it must be confessed, in strength 
of understanding, though without a particle of genius. 
He was tardy and sluggish in his movements, full of am- 
bition, though without the boldness to sustain his lofty 
aspirations; selfish, crafty, and contriving beyond any 
man of his native capacity whom I have known. It is 
most manifest that he went to Hampton Roads, not to 
facilitate a just and honorable peace such as Mr. Blair 
had proposed, but to obstruct it ; not to give renewed 
sanction and binding force to the Monroe doctrine, but to 
undermine and overthrow it. In other words, he went, 
as the only one of the peace commissioners enjoying the 



312 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

full confidence of Mr. Davis, as a ■" marplot " and a mis- 
chief-maker. 

All the particulars reported by Mr. Stephens, in his ac- 
count of the Hampton Roads negotiations, are in perfect 
accord with the view here presented. 

There was one other purpose held in view by Mr. Davis 
in sending commissioners to Hampton Roads. The people 
of the Confederate States were getting heartily sick of the 
war. Alarming movements had taken place in various 
localities indicating a determination to abandon a scheme 
of armed opposition to the Government wdiich seemed to 
promise no earthly benefit to any human being save to 
Jeff. Davis and his special allies and supporters. Deser- 
tions from the Confederate armies were to be counted by 
thousands and tens of thousands. Resolutions looking to 
peace had been introduced in Congress by myself and 
others, which had been advocated with much zeal and 
eloquence. Davis had himself to pretend that he too de- 
sired peace. He had to do more ; it had become necessary 
that he should have it in his power to assert with seem- 
ing truth that he had made strenuous efforts lor peace, 
and had found Mr. Lincoln unwilling to grant it except 
on terms alike ruinous and degrading to the South. He 
would then have it in his power to " fire the Southern 
heart " anew, and induce still greater efforts on the part 
of a generous and heroic people to save themselves and 
their families from the worst horrors that wait upon war 
in its most ferocious and destructive character. 

I shall not attempt to follow Mr. Stephens' interesting 
narrative in all its minuter details. It is sufficient to say 
here that every facility was afforded by General Grant 
and his subordinates to the Peace Commissioners seeking 
an interview with Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward at Hamp- 
ton Roads. They stopped at General Grant's headquar- 
ters several days, where he says they were most kindly 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 313 

treated. "He provided us," says Mr. Stephens, " with 
comfortable quarters on hoard of one of his dispatch boats. 
The more I became acquainted with him the more I he- 
came thoroughly impressed with the very extraordinary 
combination of rare elements of character which he exhib- 
ited. During this time he met us frequently, and con- 
versed freely upon various subjects — not much upon our 
mission. I saw, however, very clearly, that he was very 
anxious for the proposed conference to take place, and 
from all that was said I inferred — whether correctly or 
not I do not know — that he was fully apprised of the pro- 
posed object. He was, without doubt, exceedingly anxious 
for a termination of the war and the return of peace and 
harmony throughout the country. It was through his 
instrumentality mainly that Mr. Lincoln tinally consented 
to meet us at Fortress Monroe, as the correspondence re- 
ferred to shows." 

This statement does, indeed, present General Grant to 
view in a. most amiable and interesting light. A more 
trustworthy witness of his virtues than Mr. Stephens the 
Republic would be incapable of supplying, and it can not 
hut be gratifying to every true-spirited American patriot 
that the high personage thus lauded has done nothing 
since which is not fully in unison with the noble example 
set by him on this most grave and interesting occasion. 

The interview between Messrs. Lincoln and Seward 
on the one side and the Confederate Peace Commissioners 
on the other took place " in the saloon of the steamer, on 
board of which were Mr. Lincoln and Seward, and which 
lay at anchor at Fortress Monroe." Mr. Stephens con- 
tinues: u The Commissioners were conducted into the 
saloon first. Soon after, Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward en- 
tered.*" Now commenced the interchange of views, con- 
cerning which it is only important now to notice the 
principal points of discussion. 



314 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

Upon Mr. Lincoln's being asked the question by Mr. 
Stephens whether there was " no way of putting an end to 
present trouble, and bringing about a restoration of gene- 
ral good feeing and harmony," he answered " that there 
was but one way that he knew of, and that was for those 
who were resisting the laws of the Union to cease that 
resistance. All the trouble came from an armed resistance 
against the national authority." 

In the further progress of the conversation Mr. Lincoln 
said that " no arrangement could be made on the line sug- 
gested by Mr. Blair without a previous assurance that 
the Union was to be ultimately restored ; in other words, 
that the armistice desired would be granted, and a com- 
pact be entered into by both parties for the maintenance 
of the Monroe policy, provided a " previous pledge " 
should be given " that the Union was to be ultimately re- 
stored." 

Upon Mr. Stephens urging that a suspension of hostili- 
ties should take place with a view to the enforcement of 
the Monroe policy, without any previous pledge of the 
ultimate restoration of the Union, trusting to the proba- 
bility existing that such a result might, in the process of 
time, be attained, Mr. Lincoln replied "with considerable 
earnestness that he could entertain no proposition for 
ceasing active military operations which was not based 
upon a pledge first given for the ultimate restoration of 
the Union. He had considered the question of an armi- 
stice fully, and could not give his consent to any proposi- 
tion of that sort on the basis suggested. The settlement 
of our existing difficulties was a question now of supreme 
importance, and the only basis on which he would enter- 
tain a proposition for a settlement was the recognition 
and re-establishment of the national authority throughout 
the land." 

After a good deal of general discussion between Mr. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 315 

Stephens and Mr. Seward, in which I do not perceive any 
new ideas to have been advanced on either side, and after 
some little allusion to the modus operandi of an armistice, 
in case one should be agreed upon, Mr. Hunter seems to 
have considered that the time had come for him to throw 
a little cold water upon the idea of co-operation for the 
enforcement of the Monroe doctrine, and Mi'. Stephens 
reports him accordingly as saying that "there was not 
unanimity in the South upon the subject of undertaking 
the maintenance of the Monroe doctrine, and it was not 
probable that any arrangement could be made by which 
the Confederates would agree to send any portion of their 
army into Mexico." 

Mr. Stephens tells us that " Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Sew- 
ard stated that the feeling in the North was very strong 
for maintaining the Monroe doctrine." I undertake now 
to say very deliberately that there never was a time when 
the people of the South would not have been ready to arm 
almost unanimously in support of the great American 
principle embodied therein, Mr. Davis and Mr. Hunter to 
the contrary notwithstanding. 

It was several times during this interview very emphati- 
cally declared by Mr. Lincoln that the Southern States 
and people could obtain peace "by disbanding their armies 
and permitting the National authorities to resume their 
functions." 

Mr. Seward declared on this occasion that if the Con- 
federate armies were disbanded, " as to all questions in- 
volving rights of property the courts would determine, 
and that Congress would, no doubt, be liberal in making 
restitution of confiscated property, or providing indemnity 
after the excitement of the times had passed off." 

Mr. Stephens says : " I asked Mr. Lincoln what would 
be the status of the slave population in the Confederate 
States which had not then become free under his procla- 



316 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

mation ; or, in other words, what effect that proclamation 
would have upon the entire black population ? Would it 
be held to emancipate the whole, or only those who had 
at the time the war ended become actually free under it ? 

" Mr. Lincoln said that was a judicial question. How 
the courts would decide it he did not know and could 
give no answer. His own opinion was that as the procla- 
mation was a war measure, and would have effect only 
from its being an exercise of the war power, as soon as the 
war ceased it would be inoperative for the future. It 
would be held to apply only to such slaves as had come 
under its operation while it wits in active exercise. * * 

" Mr. Seward said there were only about two hundred 
thousand slaves who, up to that time, had come under the 
actual operation of the proclamation, and who were then 
in the enjoyment of freedom under it ; so if the war should 
then cease the status of much the larger portion of the 
States would be subject to judicial construction. Mr. Lin- 
coln sustained Mr. Seward as to the number of slaves who 
were then in the actual enjoyment of their freedom under 
the proclamation." 

Mr. Seward likewise produced a copy of what is now so 
well known as the thirteenth Constitutional amendment, 
adopted by Congress a day or two before this interview, 
which he significantly suggested, being a war measure, 
should the war then cease, might not be adopted by a 
sufficient number of States to make it a part of the Con- 
stitution. 

Mr. Lincoln, according to Mr. Stephens' statement, ex- 
pressed the opinion that all the States of the South then 
engaged in war would, should the war cease at once, be 
immediately taken back into the Union upon their orig- 
inal footing. 

Toward the close of this remarkable scene Mr. Hunter 
interposed, and avowed the opinion that, should the South 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 317 

submit to such terms as were now proposed, it would 
amount to u nothing but an unconditional surrender." To 
this Mr. Seward promptly responded, says Mr. Stephens, 
by " insisting that no words like unconditional surrender 
had been used, or any importing, or justly implying deg- 
radation, or humiliation even, of the Confederate States. 
He wished this to be borne in mind." Mr. Hunter re- 
peated his view of the subject and asserted that " uncon- 
ditional submission was demanded of the Southern States 
to the mercy of the conquerors." 

" Mr. Seward replied that they were not conquerors 
further than that they required submission to the laws," 
and afterward added, that " the Southern people and the 
Southern States would be under the Constitution of the 
United States, with all their rights secured thereby in 
the same way, and through the same instrumentalities as 
the similar rights of other States were. 

" Mr. Hunter said : But you make no agreement that 
these rights will be so held and secured. 

" Mr. Lincoln said that so far as the confiscation acts 
and other penal acts were concerned, their enforcement 
was left entirely with him, and on that point he was per- 
fectly willing to be free and explicit, and on his assurance 
perfect reliance might be placed. He should exercise the 
power of the Executive with the utmost liberality. He 
went on to say that he would be willing to be taxed to 
remunerate the Southern people for their slaves. He be- 
lieved the people of the North were as responsible for 
slavery as the people of the South, and if the war should 
then cease, with the voluntary abolition of slavery by the 
States, lie should be in favor individually of the Govern- 
ment paying a fair indemnity for the loss to the owners. 
He said he believed this feeling had an extensive exist- 
ence at the North. He knew some who were in favor of 



818 CASKET OF RBMlfrlSCENCEs. 

an appropriation as high as four hundred millions of dol- 
lars for this purpose." 

* * * * * * 

" Mr. Seward said that the people of the North were 
weary of the war. They desired peace and a restoration 
of harmony, and he believed they would be willing to 
pay as an indemnity for the slaves what would be re- 
quired to conduct the war, but named no amount." 

Just before the conference came to a close Mr. Stephens, 
as he states, urged upon Mr. Lincoln the propriety of re- 
considering the subject of an armistice; which lie promised 
to do. 

On the arrival of the commissioners at Richmond they 
reported all these particulars, and much more besides of 
the same tenor, to Mr. Davis ; in the face of which he 
had the unparalleled audacity to send a special message 
to the Confederate Congress, declaring in terms that u the 
enemy refused to enter into negotiations with the Confed- 
erate States, or any one of them separately, or to give to 
our people any other terms or guarantees than those 
which a conqueror may grant, or to permit us to have 
peace on any other basis than our unconditional submis- 
sion to their rule," &c. He also convoked a public meet- 
ing in the African Church at Richmond, to which meet- 
ing he addressed one of his characteristic specimens of 
rhodomontade, and, by the most shameless false state- 
ments as to all that had occurred between Mr. Lincoln 
and his commissioners at Hampton Roads, procured the 
adoption of resolutions pledging the people of the South 
to a further prosecution of hostilities, which resolutions 
would never have received the popular approval in any 
nook or corner of the South upon a full knowledge of all 
the extraordinary facts which Mr. Stephens has himself 
set forth in the book, from the pages of which I have been 
quoting so freely. No doubt can be now left upon the 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCED 319 

mind of any one that, by pursuing the course which has 
been described, Messrs. Davis, Hunter, and Benjamin, the 
chief actors in this abominable scene of falsehood and cruel 
deception, made themselves responsible for all the inno- 
cent blood afterward shed in this terrible war, for all the 
discredit connected with the formal military surrenders to 
which Generals Lee, Joe Johnston, Kirby Smith, and 
others were compelled to submit, and to all the evils of 
every kind of which the unfortunate South has had such 
bitter experience in the last eight years. With these ex- 
traordinary particulars now presented to the consideration 
of an impartial public, who will blame me for urging a 
cessation of hostilities on the part of the Confederate 
States and people in the winter of 1864-'5, and a prompt 
submission to the Constitution and laws of the land ? 

Will any portion of the Southern people ever again con- 
sent to trust their dearest rights and interests in the 
hands of the men who have thus so cruelly and unpardon- 
ably betrayed them ? 



320 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



REMINISCENCE No. XXX. 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN — THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS — A RESUME 
OF THE FACTS — WHERE THE BLAME BELONGS. 

No one, I am persuaded, can take a fair and candid 
view of the important conference at Hampton Roads be- 
tween Mr. Lincoln and the commissioners sent by Mr. 
Davis to hold intercourse with him touching the grave 
and delicate matters discussed on that occasion, and avoid 
being deeply impressed with the moderation and forbear- 
ance manifested by that eminent personage, who was des- 
tined in a few weeks to fall a victim to lawless and un- 
provoked violence, nor can such an one fail to be pleased 
also with the manly and amiable commiseration mani- 
fested by him for the sufferings of his unfortunate 
brethren of the South. His whole demeanor throughout 
this memorable scene was courteous, urbane, and affec- 
tionate.* He uttered not a word which could give reasou 
able offense to the proudest and most morbidly sensitive 
man to whom the sunny regions so ably, represented be- 
fore him had ever given birth. He stated terms or' settle- 
ment which, had they been accepted, would at once have 
brought back all the States then in insurrection to their 
original footing as compeers and co-ordinate members of 
that sublime assemblage of free and happy Common- 
wealths, from whose communion they had so causelessly 
departed. All confiscation* were to be set aside or in- 
demnified ; all other penalties which had been incurred 
were to be remitted. The number of slaves set free by 
Mr. Lincoln's proclamation, as was satisfactorily shown, 
would not probably amount to more than the number of 
two hundred thousand, and the slaveholders of the South 



CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 82 1 

were presently to receive as much as four hundred millions 
of dollars in exchange for property now become almost ab- 
solutely valueless, provided their own good sense and 
philanthropic feelings should prompt them voluntarily to 
release from bondage all the remainder of those yet pining 
in servitude. And these liberal terms were offered by 
those whose influence was such as to give the fullest as- 
surance that whatever stipulations they might enter into 
would be promptly and fairly carried into operation, and 
tendered, too, be it remembered, to those who had not the 
least reason to hope that they could remain unconquered 
even for sixty daj's longer. There is scarcely another 
such instance of magnanimity as this to be found any- 
where recorded in history. Mr. Lincoln on this occasion 
did everything that he could possibly do to avert the evils 
which he saw were about to fall upon his unhappy fellow- 
citizens of the South, except uniting with them in the 
subversion of that Union which he had solemnly sworn 
to support. 

When, a few weeks after, he was in the city of Rich- 
mond, at a time subsequent to the memorable surrender 
of Lee, his conduct was so benignant and compassionate 
as to provoke the criminatory complaints of him who was 
soon to be his successor, and whose whole soul was now 
most unhappily on fire to " make treason odious." 

Nobody can at this time doubt that if President Lin- 
coln had been permitted to live long enough he would 
have granted universal pardon to those of the South who 
had been engaged in this most deplorable war ; he would 
have done what he could, in addition, to heal all the 
wounds which the war had inflicted, with a view to the 
restoration of that general prosperity and happiness which 
had been in days past so richly enjoyed. Mr. Lincoln 
seems,, indeed, to have been a man of most kindly and 
sympathizing temper, free from all groveling selfishness, 
21 r " 



322 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

not at all addicted to the degrading arts of demagogism, 
and devoted most intensely to his country and his whole 
country. He was doubtless familiar with all the most 
shining examples of clemency and magnanimity which 
have at different periods adorned the annals of civilized 
nations, alike of ancient and of modern times, and he re- 
coiled instinctively from all that could seriously involve 
his own personal dignity or compromise the honor of the 
great nation of which he was the chosen chief. Xever 
could he have consented to do an act of wanton cruelty or 
to trifle with the sensibilities of any class of his country- 
men. Had he been once fairly placed in the situation 
afterward occupied by his immediate successor he would 
assuredly have given to the world the fullest, evidence 
that he cordially concurred in all that has been so nobly 
expressed by the immortal bard of Avon when he said : 

The quality of mercy i- not strained; 

it falleth like the gentle rain from heaven 

Upon the earth beneath ; it is twice Messed ; 

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes : 

"Tis mightiest in the mighty ; it becomes 

The throned monarch better that his crown; 

The scepter shows the force of temporal power; 

The attribute to awe ami majesty. 

Wherein doth s'r, the dread and fear of kings; 

Bnt mercy is above this sceptered sway ; 

It is enthroned in the lieart of kings; 

It is an attribute to God Himself. 

And earthly power doth then show Lkest God's 

When mercy season s justice. 

That such a person as this should have been so cruelly 
thwarted as he was fated to be (by the extraordinary 
Course adopted by Mr. Davis and his political advisers) in 
the execution of his generous purposes toward the States 
and people of the South is one of the most melancholy 
instances of political fatuity that have ever occurred : 
and no means of expiation are now left to those who com- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 6Z-j 

knitted this grievous malefaction by which the criminality 
of these men can be fully atoned for. Had Mr. Davis 
dared to let the people of the South know what terms of 
pacification Mr. Lincoln had really ottered to them, 
twenty days could not possibly have elapsed ere their own 
good sense and their yet unextinguished love of country 
would have forced the civil agents whom they had chosen 
to administer their affairs, and who had shamefully mis- 
represented them, to make peace at once upon the gene- 
rous conditions propounded. Could the Confederate Con- 
gress in. some way have become apprised of the true state 
of things then existing, they would certainly have im- 
peached and deposed Mr. Davis for daring to expose so 
recklessly the people whom they represented to the mul- 
tiplied evils which they could not but perceive would 
very soon come upon them. 

By evary constitution of government in this country 
the pardoning power is recognized as the chief attribute 
of the Executive Department, and it is in the honest and 
manly exercise of this power that more true glory is to 
be acquired than in any other mode that can be specified. 
The executive chief who formally abnegates this high at- 
tribute of sovereignty — who fails to put it in exercise on 
all suitable occasions, or who signally abuses it in any 
way, may be justly denounced as a monstrous offender 
against the dignity and welfare of the community. The 
legislative department of such a government as ours 
which obstinately refuses for an over-long period of 
time to restore such of its citizens as may have rebelled 
against its authority, but who, afterward, in a seasonable 
manner, shall have voluntarily placed themselves under 
the control of the violated law, can not but be held seri- 
ously reprehensible ;— though this unhappy state of things 
has, in point of fact, repeatedly occurred heretofore on 
both sides of the Atlantic. 



324 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

The experience of our country as to this deeply interesting 
matter has been both fortunate and unfortunate, credita- 
ble and discreditable. In regard to the exercise of the 
pardoning power, all our Chief Magistrates up to the ac- 
cidental elevation to the Presidential dignity of Andrew 
Johnson have seemed to entertain exceedingly correct 
views touching the true nature and use of this exalted 
prerogative. This personage seemed to understand that 
the pardoning power was to be employed by him simply 
as a means of conciliating persons of known influence, 
and of securing the increase of his own individual popu- 
larity. His first grand experiment in its exercise was the 
calling to Washington from the South as many of its cit- 
izens as owned twenty thousand dollars' worth of prop- 
erty, by pardoning whom he hoped ultimately to control 
the political action of the whole mass of the humbler in- 
habitants of that region. Though he had it in his power, 
through the wise provision of Congress, to issue a general 
proclamation of amnesty to those lately found in a state 
of rebellion, he ungraciously declined to do so, and even 
made no attempt whatever in this direction until Con- 
gress at last came to the conclusion that he was an unsafe 
depository of this grand attribute. 

The Congress of the United States has itself initi- 
ated the good work of governmental clemency, and a 
legislative enactment has been signed by an upright 
and truly humane President, which has diffused a senti- 
ment of gladness and gratitude throughout the whole 
land. There is no instance in all history of a more sage 
and magnanimous exercise of the pardoning power than 
this, and already the good effects resulting therefrom are 
beginning to display themselves in every part of the Re- 
public. We shall, indeed, soon be one people in sentiment, 
opinion, and interest, as we were when the foundations of 
our noble Government were laid. The policy of forgive- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 325 

ness and reconcilement will doubtless in a month or two 
more be made universal, as it ought to be, so as even to 
embrace certain classes not even yet reconstructed in tem- 
per, in thought, and demeanor. This great Government 
can afford even to shower its benignity upon the discon- 
tented, the factious, and the complaining, as God sends 
His rains upon the just and the unjust. Its own unsul- 
lied honor requires that it should do so. The sublime 
work of national pacification, I am confident, will not be 
done by the American Congress by halves, or in a stint- 
ing and parsimonious manner. The coming Congress will 
advance heroically up to the thrice-glorious duty which 
lies before them for performance, and then indeed shall 
we have peace and amity and affectionate brotherhood 
throughout this broad and Heaven-blessed continent. 
And when this state of things shall have been once fully 
realized, should it become needful to call into practical 
exercise the long-cherished Monroe doctrine, either upon 
terra firma or amid the beauteous and attractive islands 
which so providentially shut in our own Mare Glausum 
to the south, we shall behold a spectacle which, in true 
glory, will eclipse all that the world's history has hereto- 
fore depictured. I do not at all doubt that there are men 
now living who will see the sacred emblem of American 
freedom and power borne onward and aloft over the 
whole extent of North America, carrying with it every- 
where, over the land and over the circumambient seas, 
the majestic charter of our liberties, even in its present 
amplified and amended form, and, through its sublime 
instrumentality, giving protection, encouragement, and 
constantly increasing hope of the highest social and moral 
advancement to all who may be so fortunate as to be lo- 
cated under its auspicious and ennobling influence. 

I hope to be excused for here citing what I ventured to 
say in a letter to Mr. Lincoln in the year 1865, and which 



826 CASKET OF REmNISCENCES. 

has been long since printed, every word of which will be 
found in unison with what I have on this occasion enun- 
ciated. I then said, and I am not ashamed of having 
then said, honestly, and for the great purpose which I 
had at that time in view, what follows: 

I have, in the course of the present correspondence, once or twice 
incidentally alluded to the celebrated Monroe doctrine as presenting 
alike to the States of the North and those of the South a means of cor- 
dial reconcilement and of future prosperity and strength. Let me say 
here, in addition, that I deem it one of the most fortunate circum_ 
stances which could be possibly imagined that such an opportunity of 
doing. away forever with sectional distrust and animosity, and of con- 
solidating the National Union, should have been thus seasonably afforded, 
as this same Monroe doctrine has so remarkably supplied. Just recol- 
lect, if you please, that the favorite idea of all the venerated fathers of 
American liberty, in the earlier days of the Republic, was that the 
moral ascendency as well as physical domination of the Anglo-Ameri- 
can race, their peculiar institutions of government, and their social 
morals, were to be ultimately coextensive with the great continent it- 
self where it is our fortune to be located. Bear in mind also that it is 
essential to the progress of liberal sentiment in this hemisphere, the 
healthful and beneficial advancement of science, and all the useful and 
elevating arts of civilized existence, that a cordial consociation and co- 
operation of energies of every kind should be in some way effectually 
secured, with a view to the attainment of the great end in contempla- 
tion ; and I can not at all doubt that you will fully agree with me in 
the opinion that it is indeed the voice of true wisdom and of enlight- 
ened patriotism also, which invokes, which entreats you, with an earn- 
estness not known to the selfish votaries of faction, to seize at once the 
golden opportunity which an all-bounteous Providence has so fortun- 
ately presented to 3'ou of becoming not only the restorer of your coun- 
try's happiness, but the vindicator also of the principles of civil and 
religious freedom in our own favored hemisphere. 

Doubt not, I pray you, that the chivalrous sons of the South will, if 
justly and liberally treated in this the day of their sore travail and suf- 
fering, second you in all your exertions to maintain the Monroe doc- 
trine in all its primeval scope and vigor. They know the history of 
that doctrine well, and it stands associated with many of their proud- 
est and most inspiring recollections. They remember that though in 
theory originating in the generous bosom and expanded and far-reach- 
ing intellect of a renowned British statesman, the lamented George 



CASKET 0I n REMINISCENCES. 327 

Cmiuing,* (sustained, if my memory serve me faithfully, in this the 
most glorious movement of Iris public life, by such men as a Brougham 
and a Mcintosh,') yet that it is alike true that from the year JS2:j up to 
the breaking out of the present unhappy war in 1861, every adminis- 
tration of the Government of which you are now the 1 chief executive 



* Those who have made themselves familiar with the parliamentary life of 
Mr. Canning will not regard me as at all overstating his conduct on this im- 
portant subject. Hansard's "Parliamentary Debates" show that this truly 
upright and courageous British statesman not only acted the part attributed 
to him above, but that he, more than once, on very striking occasions, 
warmly felicitated himself upon having done so. His' memorable declara- 
tion in Parliament, that he Had called into existence new States in the West- 
ern hemisphere, ' ' in order to redress the balance of power disturbed in the 
East," is of course remembered by all the admirers of this great master of 
speech. It is, perhaps, not known to all that, as early as the month of Au- 
gust, 18-2.S, Mr Canning, in an interview with Mr. Hush, the American Min- 
ister near the Court of St. James at that period, urged that the United States 
should unite with Great Britain in a formal declaration against any of the 
continental Powers of Europe being allowed to take possession of any por- 
tion of tli". territory of the American continent thui recently rescued, from 
Spain . Referring to the designs suspected at that time to be entertained by 
France in particular, he stated to Mr. Rush that he "was satisfied that the 
knowledge that the United States would be opposed to it as well as England 
could not fail to have a decisive influence in checking it " In a letter to 
Mr. Rush, written a few days after this noted interview, he said, referring 
to th" apprehended transfer of Mexico to France, that Great Britain, while 
unwilling to interfere with any efforts on the part of Spain to repossess her- 
self of her ancient colonial possessions, J,' could not see the transfer of any 
portion to any other Power with Indifference." In several other letters 
this view of the subject was earnestly presented by Mr. Canning to Mr. 
Rush, who was at last persuaded to concur with him, and to bring the sub- 
ject, as he did in a very fqrcible manner, to the consideration of Mr. Monroe 
and his Cabinet. The promulgation of what is known as "the Monroe doc- 
trine " was the result. Mr. Monroe, in a message to Congress, expressed 
himself as follows: "With the existing colonies or dependencies of any 
European Power we have not interfered ana shall not interfere; but with 
the governments who have declared their independence, and maintained 
ir, and whose independence Ave have, on great consideration and on just 
principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the pur- 
pose of oppressing them or controlling their destiny, by any European 
Power, in any other light than as a manifestation of an unfriendly disposi- 
tion toward the United States." Referring to this very mes-age, Lord 
Brougham, then a member of the House of Commons, said : "The question 
with regard to South America now was, he believed, disposed of, or nearly 
so; for an event had recently happened, than which no event had ever dis- 
persed greater joy, exultation, and gratitude over all the free men of 
Europe; that event, which was decisive on the subject, was the language 
held with respect to Spanish America in the speech or message of the Presi- 
dent of the United States to Congress." Sir James Mcintosh, in one of his 
noblest speeches, alluding to the same message of Mr. Monroe, said: "This 
wise Government, in grave but determined language, and with that reason- 
able but deliberate tone that becomes true courage, proclaims the principles 
other policy, and makes known the cases in which the care of herownsatety 
will compel her to take up arms for the defense or other States. I have 
already observed its coincidence with the declarations of England, which, 
indeed, is perfect, if allowance be made for the deeper, or at least more im- 
mediate interest in the independence of South America which near neigh- 
borhood gives to the United States. This coincidence of the two g.eat 
English commonwealths (for so I delight to call them, and I heartily pray 
that they may be forever united in the cause of justice and liberty) can not 
be contemplated without the utmost pleasure bv every enlightened citizen 
of the earth. " It is a very clear proposition that, if the Great Britain of 
to-dav is the Great Britain of Mr. Canning's time, (and who can doubt it?) 
that this same Monroe doctrine may yet become the nucleus of union and 
manly, efficient, co-operative energy among all who speak the English lan- 
guage in both hemispheres, and who cherish a true regard for the tree insti- 
tutions derived from a common ancestry. So mote it be !— H. S. F. 



328 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

functionary has uniformly asserted and maintained this magna charta 
of the Western hemisphere with a steady firmness and with undimin- 
ished zeal. John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Lewis Cass, Millard 
Fillmore, James Buchanan, President Pierce, and Edward Everett, of 
the North ; James Monroe, John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, William 
II. Crawford, Andrew Jackson, John Tyler, and James K. Polk, of the 
South, at different periods and in different modes, are well known to 
have signalized their devotion to the great xVmerican principle embo- 
died in the far-famed Monroe doctrine ; and it is a little too late now 
to expect any considerable portion of the descendants of those great 
men, some of whom have gone down to the grave with so much honor, 
to relinquish those muniments of national safety and freedom which 
have been thus far so nobly maintained. 

I venture to predict, Mr. President, that if such just and gracious 
treatment shall be now accorded to the South as her people have a clear 
right to demand in the adjustment of the terms upon which peace and 
union shall be once more restored, this same Monroe doctrine is des- 
tined shortly to become the effectual healer of sectional distempcratures — 
the sovereign uniter of hearts which should never have been divided — 
the veritable Macedonian sword itself, which, skillfully wielded, will 
yet be seen to cut asunder that Gordianknot of discord which has here- 
tofore so fearfully puzzled and perplexed even the most gifted of our 
statesmen. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 329 



REMINISCENCE No. XXXI. 

THOMAS II. BENTON— GENERAL TAYLOR — JOHN M. CLAYTON — 
MEXICAN TREATY — COLONEL FREMONT. 

I do not feel that thesa reminiscences would have any 
claim to be recognized as complete were I to exclude 
therefrom all notice of the very remarkable man upon 
whose life and character I propose at this time to offer a 
few observations. 

Thomas II. Benton was born in the State of North 
Carolina. He was of respectable origin, and stood con- 
nected with many families, both in his native State and 
elsewhere, of very creditable standing. The course of his 
education at college was disagreeably interrupted by a 
very sad occurrence, upon which I shall not here ex- 
patiate, but in reference to which I once felt bound to 
make very distinct allusions in the United States Senate, 
in presence of Mr. Benton himself. On leaving North 
Carolina, before he was yet entirely grown, Colonel Ben- 
ton located in the State of Tennessee, and taught school 
upon the classic Duck river for a year or two ; during 
which time he is reported to have been a diligent student 
of law, and a general reader of books calculated to im- 
prove his intellect and lit him for the career which he 
expected soon to run. As a lawyer he located, more than 
sixty years ago, in the respectable village of Eranklin, the 
county seat of Williamson county, and about twenty 
miles from Nashville. The small brick tenement which 
he occupied as a professional office is still pointed out by 
the good citizens of Franklin to those at all curious in 
relation to the early incidents in Colonel Benton's bustling 



330 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

and variegated life. He represented for a year or two 
the rich and intelligent county of Williamson in the Sen- 
ate of Tennessee ; but I do not learn that at this stage of 
his career he gave evidence of any remarkable ability 
either as a lawyer or as a legislator. During the war of 
1812-1815, he, from various causes, became known quite 
extensively, and his celebrated conflict with General 
Jackson in the streets of Nashville imparted to him a 
celebrity not easy to be extinguished. A year or two 
after this be attracted some attention in Missouri as the 
editor of a newspaper, and an active and influential politi- 
cal partisan. In relation to his bitter personal 'quarrels in 
Missouri at this period 1 have nothing to say,, as [did not 
then know him personally. He took his seat in the Con- 
gress of the United Slates as one of the first Senators from 
Missouri on the admission of that State, more than a halt' 
century ago. For several years he attained no considera- 
ble prominence as a Senator, but this period seems to 
have been occupied by him in a dost' and unremitting 
study of the volumes of science and of general literature. 
I formed my first personal acquaintance with him about 
the year 1837, but had been a, very close observer of his 
public acts and speeches for a good while before. I had 
in general agreed with him upon the public questions 
then under discussion, hut I had never read his speeches 
with much gratification, nor was I an admirer of his im- 
perious, self-important manner in debate, or oi' his coarse 
and ferocious dogmatism. On meeting him face to face 
my first unfavorable impressions of him were greatly 
strengthened, and the excessive vanity and egotism con- 
stantly displayed by him, both in conversational scenes 
and in the Senate, inspired me with feelings of disgust 
and aversion which I have seldom experienced. Several 
well-known occurrences had taken place before my en- 
trance into the Senate in December, 1847, which had 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 331 

• 

awakened in my mind certain sentiments toward Mr. 
Benton, bordering, I must confess, upon feelings of posi- 
tive dislike and detestation, among which I may mention 
his fierce collision with my friend, Robert J. Walker, in 
the winter of 1836— '37, upon the currency question then 
pending; his bitter denunciations of Mr. Calhoun and 
others for whom I cherished at that time a tender and 
profound regard, and his habitually overbearing demeanor 
in the Senate toward all, even of his own party, who did 
not slavishly submit to his authority. His aspirations to 
the office of Lieutenant General during the Mexican war, 
the arts which he practiced to obtain this appointment, 
and his subsequent hostility to Mr. Polk because of his 
unwillingness to send him to Mexico to take command of 
our noble army there — by the unjust and ungenerous 
supersession of that gallant and patriotic officer, General 
Wintield Scott — -established in my mind sentiments of 
solid and irremovable opposition to Colonel Benton such 
as I have seldom felt for any public man whatever. 

I do not deem it proper to refer to the almost number- 
loss scenes which afterward had their progress in the Sen- 
ate, in which I felt called upon to resist Mr. Benton's ty- 
rannic insolence of demeanor, or to defend against his 
unjust and cruel assailment some of the most worthy and 
unoffending citizens 1 have ever known— the bare men- 
tion of whose names would be sufficient with all who 
knew them to justify me in the estimation of all just- 
minded and patriotic citizens for coming forward as their 
zealous defender. I prefer passing all this by, and com- 
ing to matters of still higher dignity. Paulo majora cana- 
mus ! 

One morning; a «-entleman of remarkable astuteness and 
penetration, who had been a short time before a member 
of Congress, and who, I am glad to know, is still living, 
called upon me at my committee-room in the Capitol, and 



332 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

laid before me facts showing very conclusively that Colo- 
nel Benton was then in collusion with the Mexican Min- 
ister at that time resident in Washington for the purpose 
of procuring, if he could, the rescission of the important 
treaty then recently entered into with Mexico by means 
of which vast territories had been acquired of almost in- 
calculable value. I learned from the individual referred 
to that Mr. Benton and the Mexican Minister were con- 
stantly interchanging visits, and that official letters 
signed by the Mexican Ministers had been received at the 
Department of State, where Mr. Buchanan was then offi- 
ciating, urging with singular ingenuity and force that 
the important treaty alluded to was of no earthly 
, validity whatever, by reason of the fact that a certain 
paper, somewhat loosely called a protocol^ which had been 
signed by the ministers of the United States who had 
previously negotiated the treaty, after the date of that 
instrument, was so palpably repugnant to the provisions 
thereof as necessarily, should it be allowed to have effect, 
to operate its abrogation. I was further advised that Mr. 
Benton would very soon propound this important matter 
in the Senate while that body should be in executive session, 
and would offer a resolution for adoption correspondent 
with the views set forth in the letters of the Mexican 
Minister to the Secretary of State, which have been 
already mentioned. This extraordinary disclosure, forti- 
fied, as I saw it to be, by various surrounding circum- 
stances, awakened in my bosom mingled feelings of indig- 
nation and alarm. Great national interests seemed to be 
in the most serious jeopardy. Mr. Benton's peculiar posi- 
tion at the time (that gentleman not having then lost all 
his power and influence in the Senate and with the Demo- 
cratic party, and having done much of late, as I bore in 
mind, of a nature to soften down and conciliate his former 
party adversaries, the Whigs) furnished, as I thought at 



CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 3S3 

the time, and as I do yet think, ground for the greatest 
solicitude and anxiety. After consulting with several 
considerate friends — recollecting that noted test to which 
Hamlet is described as subjecting his usurping uncle, by 
having presented to his view an extemporized dramatic 
entertainment fitted to develop aught of " rottenness," 
which might be perchance lurking " in the State of Den- 
mark" — I delivered one morning in the Senate a short 
but very animated address, (which may be yet found in 
the Congressional Globe of that period,) accompanying the 
enunciation of the same, as far as it was in my power to 
do so, with significant glances and gestures, so as at least 
to adumbrate to any guilty conscience which might be in 
presence the painful and harrowing suspicions wmich I 
had conceived, and even to " probe it " also, if possible, 
a to the very quick." This address, which six or eight 
surviving Senators do doubtless well recollect, concluded 
with that well-known couplet of Pope : 

Who would not smile, if such a man there be? 

Who would not blush, if Attica s were he"? 

Whether there was real blenching in the distrusted quar- 
ter I shall leave to those then present to decide. I was, 
I confess, very desirous that the experienced Senator from 
Missouri should desist from his scheme of territorial spoli- 
ation, could he be induced to do so either by his own fears 
of personal disgrace, or by the persuasions of his friends ; 
and I awaited the result with patience, though certainly 
not without carrying forward diligently the scrutiny 
which I had already commenced. In a day or two after 
this Mr. Polk ceased to be President, and General Taylor 
became domiciliated at the White House. 

Having unlimited confidence in that pure and fervent 
love of country which I knew to glow in the bosom of 
this war-worn veteran, and entertaining a warm personal 
esteem for the members of his Cabinet, I resolved to make 



334 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

an early appeal to those then in power to aid, with what- 
ever of influence they possessed, in defeating any proposi- 
tion which Mr. Benton might bring forward in the Senate 
looking to the doing away of the Mexican treaty. Before 
this intention could he fully executed two Senators from 
the State of Iowa, Messrs. Dodge and Jones, (both of 
whom are yet living,) came to me at the Capitol, directly 
from an interview with Mr. Buchanan, and hearing to 
me a message from that gentleman, requesting me to 
come to see him immediately, for the purpose of learning 
from his own lips all the particulars connected with the 
correspondence which had several weeks before taken 
place between himself, as Secretary of State under Mr. 
Polk, and the Mexican Minister. I should here mention 
that Mr. Buchanan yet occupied the State Department, 
having been requested by General Taylor to continue 
therein until it should become convenient for Mr. Clayton, 
then elsewhere much occupied, to relieve him. I will 
here mention an additional fact, which I could not con- 
sifter altogether immaterial. The t wo Senators who had thus 
summoned me to the presence of Mr. Buchanan had been 
up to that time (and possibly may be yet) warm admirers 
of Mr. Benton, and had frankly declared in this very in- 
terview with me that they had before that time been often 
disposed to find fault with what they deemed my own 
over-censorious course toward him. The interview thus 
solicited by Mr. Buchanan did in point of fact take place, 
but barely in time to prevent mischievous consequences in 
the Senate. The adroit and skillful engineer had already 
commenced his work in that body with all the artistic 
skill which his great parliamentary experience could sup- 
ply, and it had now become an exceedingly interesting 
question whether this same engineer could or could not 
be " hoist on his own petard." Mr. Buchanan gave me 
his views in full upon the question raised by Mr. Benton 



CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 335 

in the Senate, and he explained all the circumstances con- 
nected with the " protocol," just as I heard them from 
the lips of that able and incorruptible officer, Judge Clif- 
ford, in an interview I had with him about three months 
since, and who knows better than any one else all the 
facts of the ease by reason of his having been one of the 
Ministers to Mexico already referred to. Mr. Buchanan 
further gave me assurance that he had good reason to 
believe that General Taylor and his Cabinet entertained 
in regard to the protocol the same views that he did, and 
that they would sustain the position heretofore taken on 
the subject by the Administration of Mr. Polk. He sug- 
gested, also, that he and I should visit the White House 
on the morning anterior to the meeting of the Senate, 
(then in special session,) and before Mr. Benton's resolu- 
tion could lie acted upon, and procure, if we could, some- 
thing like a formal official declaration from President 
Taylor himself, or his expected Premier, Mr. Clayton, 
which, when shown to the Whig members of the Senate, 
would open their eyes to the dangers of the moment, and 
advise them fully of the views and wishes of the existing 
Administration. Early on the following morning, there- 
fore, before yet the hour of 10 o'clock had arrived, Mr. 
Buchanan and myself were on our way to the Presiden- 
tial Mansion. J mst as the carriage which was conveying us 
thither reached a point opposite the Department of State, 
Colonel J. Watson Webb, former editor of the New York , 
Courier and Eftqairer, made his appearance, told us that / 
he knew what was taking us to the presence of General; 
Taylor, and asked to be allowed to accompany us thitheA 
upon our patriotic mission. To this we cheerfully a/c- 
ceded, and all three of us proceeded without delay to out- 
place of destination. On reaching the White House/ye 
learned that the Cabinet was then in session. We jfeent 
our names to Mr. Clayton, and asked for an immediate 



336 CASKET OF REMINISCENCE^. 

interview, which having been accorded us we laid the 
matter so near our hearts before this courteous and accom- 
plished personage. His conduct on the occasion was most 
manly and becoming. He told us that the subject of the 
treaty and protocol had been considered fully by the Presi- 
dent and his Cabinet ; that they could see no repugnance 
between these two documents, and that they would cer- 
tainly maintain the position heretofore taken in regard to 
this matter by the administration of Mr. Polk. Mr. Clay- 
ton also said, emphatically, that he had thoroughly exam- 
ined the official correspondence which had been held be- 
tween Mr. Buchanan and the Mexican Minister, and that 
he was prepared to indorse every line and sentence which 
his predecessor, Mr. Buchanan, had heretofore addressed 
to the latter personage touching this grave and interest- 
ing affair. After this manly and patriotic assurance 
had been given, I asked Mr. Clayton to embody, or cause 
to be embodied, in a short resolution or statement, the 
views just expressed by him, winch he did accordingly; 
that is to say, he dictated it to one of our company, who 
took the same down in pencil marks, from Mr. Clayton's 
own lips on the spot. This resolution I took with me to 
the Senate,a#u laid it before several Whig members of 
that body, who declared their warm approval of the same. 
To make " assurance double sure " as to a concern so im- 
portant, Reverdy Johnson, the then Attorney General — 
as able and patriotic a man as is now living — was re- 
quested by General Taylor to go to the .Senate and declare 
^o the Whi^ members there the action which had been 
ilr id at the White House ; so, some time before Mr. Ben- 
t0v i had closed his prosj' and labored speech in support of 
his own nullifying resolution, it was well known to all but 
nim self what the result would be. When he brought his 
rem %rks to a close and sent his resolution to the Clerk's 
desk, j rose alu j S p ]£ e \ n reply for about an hour in Ian- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



guage of great explicitness, in which I inveighed as 
strongly as I could against Mr. Benton's movement, de- 
nounced it as alike unpatriotic and mischievous, and 
pointed out the unworthy personal motives by which he 
was evidently influenced. After this his resolution was 
voted down unanimously, with the exception, indeed, of 
his own vote, and he left the hall full of amrcr and ('ha- 



lt will surprise no one now, I presume, to learn that I 
considered myself justified by such facts as I have been 
relating, and which all the members of the Senate now 
surviving would be douhtless ready to attest, in doing 
what I could legitimately and fairly to weaken Mr. Ben- 
ton's influence in the country, and to circumscribe his 
capacity for mischief. Hence my assail ment of him in 
the newspapers in the summer of 1849, and other acts, 
needless now to be mentioned, indicating my opinion of 
his character and the danger which I apprehended from 
his being intrusted with too larcre an amount of civic 
power. T determined to deal him in addition a decisive 
blow, which, should the Democratic members of the Sen- 
ate prove as mindful of the honor of the country, as well 
as of their own individual dignity, as I hoped they would, 
could not but be fatal to Mr. Benton's hopes of ascendency 
in the future. On the first day of the approaching session 
of Congress I entered the Democratic caucus which had 
been convoked for that day, and moved that Thomas H. 
Benton, upon charges which I was prepared to array 
against him, should be discontinued as chairman of the 
Committee on Foreign Affairs, well knowing that if this 
movement should be successful in caucus, the Democratic 
party having a decided majority in the Senate, Mr. Ben- 
ton would be inevitably ousted from the high position 
referred to, and that William R. King, of Alabama, would 
be chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in his 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCE! 



stead, which motion, after two mornings spent in its dis- 
cussion, was carried by one vote ; soon after which Mr. 
teuton resigned his membership of 

Mr. Benton was certainly a man of considerable native 
strength of intellect, and of a most capacious and retentive 
memory. lie possessed much knowledge of various kinds, 
and as a writer of pure and nervous English had but few 
equals. He was exceedingly deficient in extemporaneous 
oratorical power, had a bad voice, a forbidding and un- 
conciliatory manner — showed but little respect for the feel- 
ings of those whom he met in debate, and as a politician 
was little regardful of the means which he employed for 
the attainment of his ends. He never spoke in the Senate 
except upon the most labored preparation, and then always 
from copious notes, and his principal speeches were 
always fully written out before their delivery. 

A scene occurred in the Senate between Mr. Benton and 
myself which I should here briefly explain. In the sum- 
mer of 1850, while Mr. Calhoun's remains were being 
transported from Washington to South Carolina, but be- 
fore they had left Washington, Mr. .Benton rose up one 
morning and made, as I understood them, some very dis- 
respectful allusions to the illustrious deceased. I stepped 
to the chair of Mr. Butler, Mr. Calhoun's. own Senatorial 
colleague, and urged him to say something in response. 
He seemed not exactly to understand the import of Mr. 
Benton's words, and therefore responded to him in a very 
confused and ineffective manner. I rose up to subjoin one 
or two observations in a style, as I am willing to acknowl- 
edge, not a little, animated and indignant. Mr. Benton 
got up suddenly from his chair, which was some distance 
from mine, making at the time a prodigious noise, and 
advanced rapidly in the direction of my position, which 
was on the outer circle of seats, not far from the central 
door of the chamber, and seemed to be aiming to get 



CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 



behind me whilst I was speaking, in order to strike me 
when in this unprotected attitude. I had been warned 
by Senator Pratt only a day or two before that he had 
publicly threatened to do me violence in the Senate if I 
ever undertook to allude to him again, and I had deemed 
it expedient to put on arms for my own defense. I was 
wearing at the. moment a Colt's revolver, which I cer- 
tainly intended to use should it become necessary. On 
drawing it, I took a step or two to the right, which car- 
ried me to the central aisle of the Senate. I then turned 
toward the central door of the chamber, intending cer- 
tainly if Mr. Benton should pass the corner near my seat 
and advance a single step down the aisle I was standing 
in, after having warned him of my intention, to fire upon 
him at once, conceiving that in shooting in the direction 
of the central door I should be able to avoid doing injury 
to any one else; for I undoubtedly did not intend to suc- 
cumb to his violence while in the decorous performance of 
my Senatorial duties. When Mr. Benton saw I was 
armed, he paused, and in a second or two allowed Gov- 
ernor Dodge, the venerable Senator from Wisconsin, to 
conduct him to his chair. Before he had fairly reseated 
himself, Mr. Dickinson, of ^New York, asked me for my 
pistol, which I willingly handed him. Then it was that 
Mr. Benton broke out again vociferously, exclaiming, 
" Let the assassin shoot!" at the same time theatrically 
tearing open his vest. I made a short explanation of my 
conduct to the Senate, after which the affair was referred 
to a special committee, whose report and the evidence 
annexed thereto occupy one large printed volume, in 
which future generations will find a hucre and somewhat 
incongruous mass of facts of a very ludicrous and inter- 
esting character. 

I will close this reminiscence with a somewhat curious 
anecdote: A few days after the two Senators from (Jali 






340 Basket of reminiscences. 

fomia, Messrs. Gwin and Fremont, were admitted to the 
seats which they had been quietly claiming for several 
months, the latter, Mr. Fremont, introduced several bills, 
evidently drawn by Mr. Benton, his father-in-law, having 
relation to important local concerns in California, and of 
a nature, as I thought, if allowed to pass, to do very 
great detriment to valuable national interests in that 
quarter. Several old and valued friends of mine in Cali- 
fornia, and among these Judge Shattuck, had warned me 
in a very serious "manner against these very movements. 
Before taking any decided step in the matter, I counseled 
with my old and valued friend, Dr. William M. Gwin, 
who I knew from more than twenty yean' acquaintance 
and familiar intercourse would be-sure to give me correct 
information. The Doctor, in very concise and decided 
language, confirmed all that Judge Shattuck had said on 
this" subject, and stated that he should himself be disposed 
tod-) what he could to defeat these schemes of Colonel 
Fremont, but for the fact that he was his colleague, and 
he was desirous of cultivating harmony with him as far 
as he honorably could. I opposed each of these bills, .and 
they were defeated. On the last night of the Senatorial 
session, when the general appropriation bill was on its 
passage, a renewed attempt was made on the part of Col- 
onel Fremont, by an amendment to this bill which he 
introduced, to attain the very objects, or a portion thereof, 
for the purpose of realizing which his separate bills had 
been introduced. Amid the excitement and confusion of 
the moment this amendment was very near passing. No 
one had presented as yet any opposition to it when I got 
up and explained its true character, and urged Senators 
to aid me in defeating it. The amendment was voted 
down, and presently afterward the general appropriation 
bill passed ; after which a motion was made to go into 
executive session, which was carried. Just as I was 






BASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



put lug my papers back into my drawer Colonel Fremont 
approached, and said, in a very quiet manner, that he 
wished to speak with me outside the Senate. I knew 
very well what this meant; for before this time I had 
never been even introduced to this < 
I never have yet been. I replied to him that I would 
join him immediately ; which I did. When we got 
together, outside the cen' ral door of the hall, he turned to 
me and said, " Colonel Benton is not at all pleased with 
your conduct this evening.' "Ah !" said I ; " this is truly 
unfortunate, as I have been laboring assiduoualy to con- 



ciliate this father-in-law of yours for several years." Upon 
which, growing a little excited, he said ? " I do not my- 
self like the manner in which you have been intermed- 
dling with my California affairs." "I should like to 
know," (I responded,) " what California affairs you can 
possibly have to attend to here which I, as a Senator from 
the State of Mississippi, may not properly meddle with." 
I continued thus, substantially : " Colonel Fremont, I beg 
to say to you that you have waked up the wrong passen- 
ger. AVhilst I am in the Senate, I shall act a fearless and 
independent part, regardless whom it may offend save my 
own constituents." To this he answered: "You are not 
a gentleman." So soon as these words were uttered I 
struck him. Just as he was apparently proceeding to 
return the blow, Senators Clarke and Mangum came 
hastily through the folding-doors of the Senate, and pre- 
vented any further hostilities. 

In about an hour a gentleman from New Jersey,, who 
was afterward Governor of that State, brought me rather 
a strangely worded note from Colonel Fremont, which I 
recognized as virtually a challenge to the field of honor. 
I wrote a reply immediately that I would proceed to Bal- 
timore early in the morning and send an acceptance from 
that place. Before the Senate adjourned Messrs. Gwin, 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



Jones, and Dodge, of that body, waited upon me and in- 
formed me that they were just from Colonel Benton's res- 
idence, where they had demanded that this affair should 
proceed no further, and urged that I should consent to 
withdraw my note in order that Colonel Fremont might 
be able to withdraw his. To this I very promptly con- 
sented. I proceeded to the State of Mississippi next morn- 
ing. In a few days thereafter my honored and truly chi- 
valrous friend, the Hon. Reverdy Johnson, transmitted 
me a copy of a very denunciatory hand-bill just issued by 
Colonel Fremont, of which Colonel. Benton was himself 
undoubtedly the author, and urged me under all the cir- 
cumstances existing to take no notice whatever thereof. 
I followed his advice. 

Several years thereafter, when Colonel Fremont was in 
a manner so extraordinary put in nomination for the 
Presidency, I chanced to be a resident of San Francisco, 
in California. One morning, when seated in my profes- 
sional office in that city, several worthy gentlemen came 
in. They were political friends of Colonel Fremont, but 
very good personal friends of my own. They called my 
attention to an article recently printed in, the Cleveland 
Plaindealer, in which their Presidential candidate had 
been fiercely assailed, and in which he was accused, dur- 
ing his occupancy of a seat in the Senate, of having made 
a violent and cruel assault upon a very aged and decrepit. 
brother member of that body, (meaning myself,) and it 
was insisted that a man of such ferocious manners was 
wholly unworthy of Presidential promotion. These gen- 
tlemen asked me to read the article, which I did, and 
then inquired of me as to the truth of its statements. I 
was happy at having it in my power to say to them that 
their Presidential candidate had received great injustice 
at the hands of the Plaindealer. They then inquired of 
me whether I would make a certificate to that effect, to 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 6^6 

) 

be used in the canvass, to which I assented, and formally 
certified that it was not true that Colonel Fremont had 
ever stricken me in his life, and subjoined that, had he 
done so, I was quite competent to defend myself against 
any assault which lie could possibly have made, and so 
ended this remarkable affair. Vive la banc 
humbug ! 




CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



REMINISCENCE No. XXXII 



JOHN A. QUITMAN 



I have had occasion to speak heretofore more than once 
of a gentleman whom [ knew long and well, and whose 
distinguished career, both in peace and in war, seems t<> 
claim a more formal notice at my hands than he has yet 
received. No citizen of the South ean he mentioned whose 
character and acts have a closer or more important con- 
nection with the great historic events which have been 
occurring during the last twenty wars in the State of 
Mississippi, and in several adjoining States, as w 
with the remarkable consequences which have 1.- 
therefrom, than those of the subject, of the present remi- 



I do not propose to write the life of General John A. 
Quitman. This I learn has been done. in a very satis- 
factory manner already by some writer, judged by the 
admirers of General Quitman to be altogether competent 

to this task. My present intention is to bring as tar as 
I can into a distinct and luminous view a few of the more 
salient points in his busy and troublous history, and to 
give a more explicit account than has heretofore been pub- 
lished of the peculiar relations subsisting between that 
gentleman and myself. 

John A. Quitman was a native of the State of New 



John A. Quitman was a native of the State of New 
York, and was of German extraction. lie received an 
excellent collegiate education, and is said to have been 
intended for the Christian ministry. When he reached 
mature years, though, lie declined this vocation and re- 
solved to devote himself to the profession of the law. He 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



had scarcely attained the age of twenty-one when lie 
' rrated to the State of Ohio. There he did not remain 
loner, but somewhere between L820 and 1825 descended 
the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and readied the city of 
Natchez, where he located permanently. His person was 
real i repressiveness, his manners were those of a 
modest, well-bred gentleman, and his habits of life were 
such as were well calculated to commend him to general 
esteem and confidence in that rich and refined commu- 
nity, lie was fortunate enough very soon to attract the 
attention of Mr. Griffith, who had become eminent as a 
lawyer at Natchez, had married a daughter of the late 
Chief -I nst ice Edward Turner, of Mississippi, and obtained 
by this connubial association with a most beautiful and 
accomplished lady quite a competent fortune. I may he 
excused for mentioning here, in passing, that Judge Tur- 
ner, as I have heard from his own lips, was a native of 
Fairfax county, Virginia, and was nephew to that par- 
ticular Mr. Payne who is represented in Weems' "Life of 
Washington," as having knocked down General Wash- 
ington, at Fairfax Court-house, in a quarrel which acci- 
dentally occurred between them at that place. This 
curious incident is set forth by Mr. Weems in a very 
graphic and interesting manner. The descendants of this 
Mr. Payne are now scattered through Kentucky, Tennes- 
see, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, many of whom 
1 have known personally in former years. 

Soon after the partnership just mentioned was formed 
between Griffith and Quitman, the latter married a Miss 
Turner, a very wealthy and accomplished lady, who was 
ronsin-geniian to the wife of Mr. Griffith. During the 
continuance of the partnership, which was only termi- 
nated, at the end of four years, hy the decease of Mr. Grif- 
fith, -the tirm divided $54,000 of net profits, as I have 
several times heard mentioned by General Quitman him- 



ianv of whom 



former years. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



self. Quitman then formed a partnership with Mr. John 
L. McMurrun, whieh lasted until the former was made 
Chancellor of Mississippi, which last event occurred about 
two years before I first saw the subject of this notice. 

Mr. McMurran married, also, a Miss Turner, the sister 
of Mr. Griffith's wife, took a very high position at the 
bar, and lived for many years, beloved and honored by 
the whole community. He was my intimate friend for 
many years, and in the fierce political contest of 1851 
sustained me for the office of Governor against Genera! 
Quitman himself, mainly, of course, in consequence of his 
intense devotion to the Union cause. 

General Quitman, when placed upon the chancery 
bench, was one of the youngest men that had ever been 
raised to a judicial office of such high dignity in any part 
of the Republic. He sustained himself well in this very 
responsible position, and continued to act as chancellor to 
the entire satisfaction of intelligent men of all parties, 
until he at last voluntarily resigned his office, and re- 
turned to the practice of the law. Meanwhile he had be- 
come one of the wealthiest men in Mississippi, and was 
understood to live in a style of almost princely elegance. 

It is a remarkable fact, and certainly one very credita- 
ble to General Quitman, that though he had opposed with 
more than ordinary zeal and strenuousness the incorpora- 
tion of the principle of popular suffrage in the election of 
judicial officers ; and though the new constitution, with 
this feature embodied in it-, had been almost unanimously 
adopted, yet when a new chancellor had to be elected un- 
der the amended constitution, he was re-elected to this 
dignified post without opposition from any quarter. T 
had the honor to act as one of a committee of three (of 
whom the late John I. Guion and Hon. William A. Bod- 
ely, of Louisville, Ky., were the other Uvo members) ap- 
pointed to solicit General Quitman to be a candidate for 



CASKET OK REMINISCENCES. 



re-election. I may be allowed to mention here, as rather 
i curious fact, that the proposition to elect judges by the 
people — a thing which had never at that time been known 
in this country, save in Connecticut in early colonial 
times — was first made by this Reminiscent in a newspaper 
published in the citv of Vicksbu'rs:, over the signature of 
'Thomas .Jefferson," more than forty years ago; and my 
lumbers on this subject purporting to have been written 
ipon the authority of this eminent Democratic statesman, 
a ho had very forcibly recommended this mode of election 
n his celebrated letter to Mr. Ivercheval, to be found in 
he fourth volume of Mr. Jefferson's works. These num- 
•cis of mine were responded to with much spirit and 
ibility by Judge Bodely — the gentleman already men- 
ioned — and will be recollected to have brought on a pro- 
lacted and excited discussion at the court-house in 
Ucksburg, over which the Hon. William L. Sharkey 
•resided. The connection which I chanced to have with 



his interesting question prompted a popular call upon 
lie to be a candidate to represent in the convention, which 
i ad then already been convoked, the large, Senatorial dis- 
trict extending along the bank of the Mississippi river 
or about two hundred miles from the then northern 
►oundary of the State to a point about ninety miles 
outh of Vicksburg: and I moved as rapidly as I could 
►etween the two remote points mentioned in the summer 
>f 1832, in a common dug-out, calling on all the voters 
raiding upon the bank of the "Father of Waters," 
Irinking for the most part the muddy water of the river, 
nd subsisting on cheese and smoked venison, with an 
•ccasional small supply of very indifferent bread. When 
reached the lower terminus of the district I found my- 
elf in the hands of the aoue and fever, and before I £0t 
entirely well the canvass had closed, and I found myself 
lefeated by a majority of about forty votes. I had this 






64:$ 'CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

consolation only over the disappointment of my ambitious 
hopes: A very able man, the late Eugene MeGehee, was 
elected over me, who, abandoning his opposition to the 
popular elective principle in the midst of the canvass, 
openly pledged himself to support it in the convention if 
elected. This i 



burg, and an able an 
preferred to a young 
loiiir enough in Mise 



was very 



who had 



I undertake to say that the constitution of Mississippi 
embodied the popular suffrage idea, in connection with 
judicial elections, earlier than was done elsewhere since 
the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. I 
was induced to propose it in the manner mentioned in 
consecpience of a then recent perusal of Mr. Jefferson's 
writings, in which this mode of election is so hir** 1 " 



ommended, especially 



o a Mr. Kerch 

ire ranid diffu: 



is scarcely an 

:>litical notion 
dished, public 

nion. I take 



instance 01 a more rapid diffusion of any political notion 
whatever so directly in opposition to established public 
sentiment than now occurred all over the Union. I take 
no particular credit to myself for first suggesting this 
idea in Mississippi ; and it would be indeed yvvy ridicu- 
lous for me to do so, for I hold that experience has plainly 
shown this change in the mode of election to have been a 
great and most deplorable error, since for many years past 
it has, as I think, been found altogether impossible to 
keep politics out of the judicial elections; and hence a 
great and constantly-increasing deterioration of the judi- 
cial department of our system has been observable. 

I now return to my theme. General Quitman, to the 
surprise of all who knew him in Mississippi, in 1833, be- 
came an ardent State-rights man or nullifier, and took a 
leading part in getting up -a convention in the city of 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



Jackson, Mississippi, for the purpose of indoctrinating 
this State with this dangerous theory. I witnessed the 
discussions in this body, and immediately reviewed the 
same in the columns of the Mississippian, and with so 
much plainness and severity that General Quitman took 
ie thereat, so that, in truth, we did not speak 
jars. When he subsequently ran for a seat in 
Congress against Mr. Gholson we accidentally .met one 
uiffht at a Theater in Jackson, and became cordially recon- 



The Mexican war was in active progress when he ap- 
plied to me to recommend him to Mr. Polk for the com- 
mission of a brigadier general, he evidently supposing 
that my recommendation would be of some avail to him 
in the matter, on the ground that I then had the honor 
to be a member of the United States Senate for the State 
of Mississippi, though I had not yet taken my seat in 
that body. I complied with this request most cheerfully, 
and the more so perhaps because of the recent disappoint- 
ment of the General's aspirations in the Senatorial elec- 
tion heretofore described, in which Governor McKutthad 
been so disastrously overthrown. 

General Quitman's conduct in Mexico was eminently 
creditable to him. He fought Hrst under General Taylor 
in the region of the Rio Grande, and afterward under 
General Scott in that memorable campaign marked with 
the conquest of the City of Mexico, of which place Gen- 
eral Quitman will be remembered to have been for several 
months military governor. 

During his sojourn in Mexico he frequently wrote to 
me, and in more than one letter besought me to see to his 
promotion, declaring that he had no other friend then in 
Congress from Mississippi upon whose support he could 
confidently rely. Meanwhile, Mr. Davis, whose conduct 
in Mexico had been mentioned favorably by General Tay- 
lor in his official reports, had, at the earnest instance of 



CASKET 01' REMINISCENCES. 



myself and a few others, been appointed by Governor A. 
G. Brown to the Senatorial position which had then re- 
cently become vacant in consequence of the sudden decease 
of my very worthy colleague in that body, the Hon. Jess* 
D. Speight. Mr. Davis was a Democrat: a planter ; and 
supposed to be possessed of somewhat more than ordinary 
intelligence, who we thought might be expected to get 
along very well In the Senate after he should have had 
the advantage of a little official experience. Unfor- 
tunately he and General Quitman had never been able to 
harmonize at all in military service, and Davis, as [ per- 
sonally know to be a fact, and as was very well and pain- 
fully known to General Quitman also, had been much in 
the habit, both in Mexico and elsewhere, of ridiculing the 
General's claims to military respectability. 

Out of this state of things consequences soon arose of a 
highly disagreeable character. President Polk had be- 
stowed upon General Quitman a brevet nomination for 
the dignity of major general on account of distinguished 
military Bervices at Monterey. This nomination, for some 
reason or other, had lingered in the Committee on Mili- 
tary Affairs of the Senate for some time, though it was 
known that so soon as it should he reported back to the 
body it would be favorably acted upon. Mr. Benton, the 
chairman of the Military Committee, had been absent for 
some time, and it was not known when he would return. 
Meanwhile Mr. Davis was acting chairman of the com- 
mittee, On the very day before the volunteer forces of 
the United States who had been on service in Mexico 
were to be discharged General Quitman came to my house, 
on the Georgetown Heights, and laid the above facts be- 
fore me for consideration, saying to me, wi My dear friend, 
my military reputation is in great -danger. You know 
well Colonel Davis' unappeasable animosity to me. He 
has a thousand times traduced me while we were in ser- 
vice together in Mexico ; was more than once openly in- 



OASk'ET OF REMlKTSCENCES. 



subordinate, relying, as he did, upon General Taylor's 
known partiality for him, and did all in his power to un- 
dermine my fame and impair my popularity, both with 
the troops that I commanded and with my fellow-citizen* 
at home. I fear that he has me at last completely in his 
power, being, as I learn to be the fact, the present acting 
chairman of the Military Committee in the Senate, before 
which my brevet nomination for gallant conduct at Mon- 
- : ~ now pending. This is the last day on which this 
nom nation can be continued, for the forces which I com- 
manded in Mexico will be to-morrow discharged. He, 
Davis, must be made to report back the nomination to the 
nate to-day, or I shall be a deeply-dishonored man. He 
pretends to have a technical objection to the confirmation 
of all such nominations in the volunteer branch of the ser- 
vice ; but this is wholly untenable, as I will in a moment 
show you. [He then handed me a brief of the legal points 
involved, which I at once examined carefully and he then 
resumed.] Now I wish you this morning to move for an 
executive session of the Senate and demand of Mr. Davis 
his report upon my nomination. I care not whether it is 
favoraWe or unfavorable. I am satisfied that your appeal 
to the Senate in my behalf will be successful. " He added: 
" I do not doubt Unit the performance of this duty of 
friendship will involve you in personal difficulty with 
Mr. Davis; but I am asking of yon only to do for me 
what I feel I would cheerfully do for yon were our posi- 
tions exchanged." I at once answered that I would take 
pride in complying with his request. [ accompanied him 
to the Capitol ; moved for an executive session of the 
Senate: and on this being accorded I demanded of the 
chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs his report 
upon General Quitman's nomination. Mr. Douglas aided 
me in the movement on account of the fact that his friend, 
(Jeneral Shields, occupied a position similar to that of 



his report 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



General Quitman. Mr. Davis for some time hesitated to 
make his report. When he did so it was an unfavorable 
one. Mr. Douglas and myself then attacked his report, 
succeeded in overthrowing its reasonings, and got both 
Quitman and Shields confirmed almost unanimously. 
Very bitter words were spoken on this occasion between 
Mr. Davis and myself in the hearing of our brother Sena- 
tors, and I did not hesitate to charge him with illiberally 
and injustice toward a meritorious comrade in arms, and 
I even menaced him with the exposition of his unworthy 
conduct to our constituents in Mississippi. 

General Quitman, when the result was reported to him, 
was full of rejoicing and gratitude. This g entleman was 
nominated, not long after, to the office of Governor of 
Mississippi, and he was elected, also, chiefly by force of 
his military popularity. He was holding the office of 
Governor when the famous compromise, struggle of 1850 
occurred. My own position was such in Washington 
that I stood greatly in need of some generous and devoted 
friend at the capital of Mississippi, and I fondly looked 
in the direction of General Quitman for sympathy and 
support. All my five colleagues from Mississippi were 



warmly opposed to the compromise measures of 1850, and 
became much offended with me because of my support <»l 
them. I intend no offense to any one when I state that 
they secretly combined 'against me in Washington and 
used what influence they possessed in Mississippi for my 
political ruin. General Quitman, 1 grieve to say, acted 
with them. The Legislature of the State was induced to 
censure me in resolutions of a particularly disrespectful 
and acrimonious character. Mv five colleagues went home. 



and in connection with Governor Quitman called a large 
public meeting at the city of Jackson, and set. on foot a 
new political party to be called the State-Bights party of 
Mississippi, of which all were invited to become members 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 60 6 

who were opposed to the Compromise and my course in 
support of the measures embodied therein without regard 
to previous party names or antecedents. 

I got home aboul a month afterward. T found almost 
the whole Legislature arrayed against me, the Executive 
department, and nearly all thejudicial officers of the State. 
The newspapers were nearly all of the secession stamp. 
Under these circumstances T plainly saw there was only 
one course to pursue, and 1 adopted it. T immediately 
Challenged Governor Quitman to public discussion of the 
fending questions at the State capital. He accepted the 
challenge, but was suddenly taken sick, and did not come 
to the iield of expected conflict, i went to the capital 
myself and addressed the large crowd assembled, in lan- 
guage of the utmost warmth and plainness, and announced 
my determination at once to go over the State and person- 
ally urge the people to assemble in convention at Jackson 
on the very day upon which the Legislature had been 
summoned to reassemble. T went forth accordingly, trav- 
eled night and day, made some forty public addresses, 
and on the day that the Legislature Came together the in- 
dividuals composing it learned with affright that a popu- 
lar convention of fifteen hundred members was then sit- 
ting iii the City Hall, and was proceeding to rebuke their 
own treasonable action, and to censure the censurers. Our 
convention was indeed a noble body, ami \ shall ever re- 
gard it as the proudest occasion of my lite when [ ad- 
dressed this numerous assemblage of upright and intelli- 
gent citizens, standing in the opening made by the re- 
moval of a large window in the City Flail, and address- 
ing those assembled both within the house and on the 
outside. The resolutions adopted by this worthy body were 
soon printed and cast abroad, and 1 then proceeded to the 
hall i»t* the I Louse of Representatives in the State Legis- 
lature, and demanded a hearing from that body. The 
23 r 



354 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

House adjourned and yielded to me the hall, and I devoted 
full two hours to the task of explaining to those assem- 
bled the dangers of the hour. After this I proceeded to 
Washington. 

When the next summer came the struggle so fiercely 
waged in Mississippi had to be brought to a termination. 
A convention had been called by the Legislature of the 
State to assemble in Jackson in the succeeding autumn, 
to determine this precise question : " Will Mississippi join 
South Carolina in the act of secession from the Federal 
Union, proposed by the latter State?" This question 
was to be settled by the election of delegates to the con- 
vention. Some one was to be elected Governor to carry 
the project of secession into effect, provided co-operation 
with South Carolina should be determined on. Quitman 
was nominated as secession candidate for Governor. I 
was nominated as the candidate of the Union party, 
called into existence in the preceding year. We took the 
field as opposing candidates, and confronted each other 
first at the Capitol in Jackson. Before either of us spoke 
I said to him in a low but very distinct tone , " General, 
in looking over the past, it seems to me a little strange 
that I should now find you in combination with Davis 
for my overthrow. Have you forgotten my contest with 
him in the United States Senate, when he was seeking to 
destroy your well-earned military fame ? Have you for- 
gotten your assurances then of future friendship?" 
u Surely," be said, pretty sternly, "you do not intend to 
discuss that matter to-day. " "Certainly not," I replied, 
"but still I can not help painfully remembering this part 
of our past history." We addressed the people at some 
length in Jackson that day. We met on about seven or 
eight occasions afterward, when he found his cause utterly 
indefensible, and resolved to break up our joint appoint- 
ments. For this purpose he insulted me grossly at a place 



OASKKT OK REMINISCENCES. 

called Sledgeville. I resented it; we fought, and he im- 
mediately published separate appointments. I went 
through the State alone, warning the people everywhere 
of the perils of the crisis. By the time we both got back 
to Jackson the election of conventional delegates, which 
preceded by a mouth the election of Governor ,was over, and 
my respectable opponent found that the very convention, 
the calling of which he had himself recommended, would, 
when it should assemble, declare almost unanimously 
against the breaking up of the Federal Union. Not being- 
willing to encounter the actual defeat of his gubernato- 
rial claims, which he saw plainly menaced, he at once 
withdrew from the canvass, resigned the office of Gover- 
nor, and went home. Mr. Davis, who had till then re- 
mained pretty much perdu, was brought forth as a candi- 
date, with the hope that by adroitly putting this bril- 
liant military chieftain upon a regular Democratic plat- 
form, and declaring that all further thoughts of breaking 
up the Union were renounced, they would be able to cajole 
the people into supporting him. But in a- few weeks he 
was seen wending his way to " Briarfield," on the bank 
of the Mississippi, where he would have slumbered in de- 
served obscurity up to the present moment but for Mr, 
Pierce's calling him forth to give him another chance to 
ruin his country. 

General Quitman afterward came to Congress as a Rep- 
resentative from a district where lie was personally well 
known and much loved. He found the national House 
of Representatives a very unfavorable theater for the ex- 
hibition of his particular species of ability, and when I 
last saw him in Washington he professed to be greatly 
disgusted with the conduct of some of those with whom 
he found himself politically associated, and even talked 
seriously about resigning his seat. A few months after 
this he died, and was, as I think, exceedingly fortunate 



356 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

Iji doing so before all the terrible evils brought upon the 
country by secession had been realized. 

Let me do General Quitman justice. He was truthful, 
honest, brave, of a slow and plodding intellect, but in re- 
gard to ordinary matters, sound and practical in his views. 
He was over ambitious, fond of taking the lead in all 
things, somewhat given to selfishness, and was altogether 
the dullest and most prosy speaker I have ever known 
who could speak at all. With a good deal more of solid 
intellect than Mr. Davis, and a far truer heart, and sur- 
passing him also much in information, he was inferior to 
him in what is called flippancy of expression, and he was 
certainly far behind him also in impudent, effrontery, in 
low and vulgar cunning, and in a capacity for bringing 
into advantageous and effective use the multiplied arts of 
deception. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 857 



REMINISCENCE No. XXXIII. 

ELIAB KINGMAN — GENERAL HENRY A. WISE— INTERNAL IM- 
PROVEMENTS IN VIRGINIA — POLITICAL BOURBONISM. 

I propose to say something here of two individual, as 
striki ugly contrasted to each other almost as it is possi- 
ble that members of the same race could well be, at least 
in temper and habits of life, as well as : _n the careers that 
they have severally run — albeit there is much in the char- 
acter and example of each of them quite worthy of respeel , 
of love, and even of a certain sort of admiration. 

When I was in the twelfth year of my age, E was occu- 
pied in front of my quiet paternal home, in the lower part 
of the famed county of Fauquier, in Virginia, in some 
trivial employment, on a fine autumnal evening, when f 
saw riding up to the gate which opened into the green 
and shaded yard a tall, good-looking young gentleman, 
who, after having inquired whether my father was in the 
house, and having learned that lie was, descended from his 
horse, and approached the mansion, at the door of which he 
was met by my loved and venerated parent, who saluted 
him cordially, and invited him to enter his ever-hospitable 
abode. It was but natural that I should myself feel some 
curiosity as to what might turn out to be the cause of 
this unexpected visit. This was soon made known, tor 
the stranger, before seating himself, handed my father a 
letter, which informed him that the name of the bearer 
thereof was Eliab Kingman; that he had recently grad- 
uated at some celebrated New England university or col- 
lege, and that he had now come South to obtain employ- 
ment, if he could do so, as a teacher of the Latin and 
Greek languages, and of the ordinary branches of an Eai- 



358 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

glish education. I saw at once that the young and mod- 
est stranger had made a fine impression upon my paternal 
protector and guide, and that the long-desired opportunity 
would now be afforded me of moving forward in a course 
of intellectual culture which I had been always taught to 
regard as indispensable to the character of a refined and 
well-bred gentleman, as well as of a patriotic and useful 
citizen. The school was soon organized, and Mr. King- 
man, in a week or two, saw around him some fifteen or 
twenty boys, all of whom were intent upon acquiring, as 
rapidly as possible, all that he was capable of teaching 
them, and of fitting themselves in this way for the multi- 
plied duties of the life which lay before them. It must 
be confessed that though the members of this school were 
in general assiduous and well-behaved, yet that there were 
a number of scenes occurring during the year indicating a 
little more than the customary vivacity of restless boy- 
hood, and it is certain that all the rules of decorum pre- 
scribed by our youthful magister were not always duly 
respected; and I suspect that he must have been often a 
good deal annoyed by ebullitions of exuberant gayety and 
frolicksomeness which he was compelled to witness. But 
never did I see a frown upon Mr. Kingman's visage dur- 
ing the year that he was sojourning among us. He was 
always cheerful, civil, and even affectionate, and seemed 
to take the greatest delight in giving such aid to the 
pupils under his charge as he supposed them to need at his 
hands. He lived for nearly a year in the house which 
had given me birth, was uniformly treated as if lie had 
been one of the family, and when he left us for a more 
profitable school ottered to him elsewhere there was not 
one of my father's family who did not painfully regret 
the loss of his pleasant and instructive society. 

Some years after this Mr. Kingman married an aruia. 
ble and accomplished Virginia lady, a very near relative 



CASKET OF REHTNISGENO] 359 

of the late distinguished and most meritorious Confeder- 
ate officer, General Ewell, and located himself in that 
portion of the city of Washington where he now resides. 
He very early purchased here a considerable quantity of 
land, then cultivated as a field, which is at this moment 
overspread with some of the most costly and tasteful edi- 
fices anywhere to be found in this splendid metropolitan 
city. Here he continued his literary studies, which he 
had in fact never much pretermitted ; and, while thus 
becoming a man of large and varied attainments, he occu- 
pied himself for many years with the preparation of va- 
rious well-written articles for the National Intelligencer and 
other newspapers of eminent standing and influence, which 
very soon won for him much reputation, and which, as I 
suppose, were also a source of considerable pecuniary 
profit. While I had the honor of holding a seat in Con- 
gress, Mr. Kingman was an occasional contributor to sev- 
eral well-known newspapers ; but the letters from his 
facile pen which every morning appeared in the Balti- 
more Sun, over the signature of " Ion," possessed an attrac- 
tiveness altogether unequaled at that period in this class 
of writing. They were generally short, never extending 
over more than three-quarters of a column of that widely- 
circulating gazette, but were always smoothly and beau- 
tifully written, in a neat, polished, and sometimes very 
pointed style, ever supplying some new and interesting 
intelligence touching current Congressional events not to 
be found elsewhere, aud very often presenting graphic and 
racy descriptions of eminent public men then upon the 
stage. These articles evinced the greatest astuteness of 
mind, and were of practical utility to many understand- 
ings not much inclined to receive instruction in forms 
grosser and less attractive. I have long thought that the 
letters of " Ion," if collected and published at this time in 
one connected whole would prove alike entertaining and 



360 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

edifying to those who did nut have an opportunity of 
perusing them at the time of their first appearance. 

Mr. Kingman is now, as I suppose, somewhere about 
seventy-five years of age. lie is yet vigorous and active 
in mind and body ; is as cheerful and sociable as he was 
when I first knew him, more than a half-century since ; 
and his remarkable memory seems to have retained with- 
out either loss or discoloration from the influence of time 
and the varied accidents of life, all that he lias ever here- 
tofore learned, either of men or things, as well as all that 
the calm and patient study of a lifetime could accumu- 
late amid the treasure-houses of science and scholastic lit- 
er;! lure. I lis ordinary conversation, which is never 
marked with the smallest tincture of bitterness or envy, 
is of far more value to a person of taste and discernment 
than would prove the boasted volumes of many professed 
authors of considerable celebrity. He is, indeed, as pure 
a model as I have ever known of domestic and social 
excellence, and has so passed his life as never to have 
made a single enemy, or to have been accused of perform- 
ing a, single act of which an Atticus himself would have 
been ashamed. It is obvious that had such a man as I 
have described been ambitious of political preferment, 
there are but few civil stations to which he might not 
have aspired without justly incurring the charge of pre- 
sumption ; but it is hardly possible that he could ever 
have been tempted to resort to those expedients which 
experience has shown to be almost indispensable to politi- 
cal advancement in a republic like ours. I doubt not 
that it is for him, upon the whole, better that he should 
have lived, a life of quietude and repose, and have been 
thus able to preserve to old age the feelings of philosophic 
serenity and unbroken contentedness, the enjoyment of 
which the golden treasures of earth are not of power to 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 361 

guarantee, nor all the efforts of the unjust and malevo- 
lent of this world capable of taking away. 

Integer vitae seelerisque purus 
Non eget Mauri jaculis, ueque arcu, 
NTec venenaMs gravida sagittis, 
Fusee, pharetra ; 

Sive per Syrtes iter aestuosas, 
Sive tacturus per inliospitalem 
Caucasian, vel quae loca fabulosus 
Lambit Hydaspes. 



I shall venture to express the opinion, though to all this 
opinion may not appear well founded, that within a scope 
of territory not more than a hundred miles square on the 
Virginia side of the Potomac a larger number of splendid 
and useful public men has appeared in the course of a 
single century than any other country can claim to have 
produced in the same space of time as the natives of a 
lauded region of no greater extent and inhabited by a 
population not more numerous. I would fix the begin- 
ning of (his hundred years on the 1st day of January, 
1720, and close it on the last of December, 1819. Persons 
whose attention has not been specially turned to this 
matter will be a little surprised to see the number of 
illustrious names which adorn this list of the great and 
good men of the Old Dominion who belonged to the cat- 
egory specified, a small portion of whom only will be here 
specified: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James 
Madison, James Monroe, Patrick Henry, John Marshall, 
Richard Henry Lee and several brothers, all nearly of 
equal distinction with himself; Light-horse Harry Lee, 
;is he was called; George Wythe, George Mason, Chan- 
cellor Pendleton, Spencer Roane, Edmund Randolph, John 
Randolph of Roanoke, Littleton Walter Tazewell, Henry 



362 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

Clay, Chapman Johnson, Benjamin Watkins Leigh, Wil- 
liam H. Crawford, John Forsyth, William B. Giles, James 
and Philip P. Barbour, General Scott, General Taylor, 
General Harrison, General Gaines, General Robert E. Lee, 
Stonewall Jackson, William C. Preston, James Brown, 
General Joseph E. Johnston, with numerous others of a 
grade only a little inferior to these. I certainly intend 
to do no wrong to my loved native State when I confess 
that, from the operation of causes a little difficult to ex- 
plain, she does not seem fco have been altogether as pro- 
lific of illustrious men of late as she was when her pop- 
ulation was tar less. I would not undertake to assert 
that she is not even at the present time nearly equal in 
her number of distinguished citizens to several other States 
whose origin was very nearly cotemporaneous with her 
her own ; and on this disagreeable topic I prefer to say 
no more on this occasion lest I should tempt some one to 
apply to me the well-known words of Horace : 

Difficilis, querulus, laudator teraporis acti 
IV puero, censor castigatorque minoruui. 

A few of those of the present generation whom I have 
more or less known, and who may, therefore, be classed 
as coming within the circle of my reminiscence, may de- 
serve at least a passing notice. 

There is a very conspicuous citizen of Virginia whom, 
for a hundred various reasons,! have always regretted not 
to have known better. Some have charged him with be- 
ing eccentric, ;is most men of genius have been by the 
dull-headed and plodding sons of obscurity, whose intel- 
lectual pinions were not of sufficient vigor and pliancy to 
lift them to the regions of the upper air; for, as Byron 
very justly says : 

llr who ascends to mountain-topi; shall find 
The loftiesl peaks most wrapt in clouds and snow ; 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 363 

He who surpasses or'subdues mankind 
Must look down on the hate of those below. 

Though high above the sun of glory glow, 
Aim! far beneath the earth and ocean spread, 

Round him are iey rocks, and loudly blow 
Contending tempests on his naked head, 
And thus reward the toi.'s which to those summits led. 

My earliest recollection of General Wise stands associ- 
ated with the duel between himself and Mr. Coke, his 
first opponent for Congress, with whom I have heard that 
he had very fiercely discussed the question of nullification, 
then broached by visionary politicians for the first time, 
at least in any grave and formal manner. The General 
was then, if I remember aright, a champion of the Union 
cause, and a supporter of General Jackson's famous pro- 
clamation against South Carolina. 

I am not certain that T ever heard of Henry A. Wise 
until about the time he first became a candidate for Con- 
gress, though with his previous career I must of necessity 
have since become familiar, since for nearly sixteen years 
past I have resided in the vicinage where his public 
career was commenced ; and concerning his early life I 
have heard a thousand anecdotes from the lips of that 
genial, high-souled gentleman, Bailie Peyton, and from 
others. Besides, General Wise has, within a year or two 
past, published a brilliant and interesting volume, called, 
I believe, "The Seven Decades," in which he has told the 
world almost as much of the particular period of his life 
referred to as he was able to do without some appearance 
of egotism ; to which book I have really only one objec- 
tion, which twill specify: I think that lie has been 
tempted by the fervor of genius to make too harsh and 
too unkind a portrayal of his old friend and political 
leader, Mr. Clay, for whose character I have far more both 
of respect and affection than he would seem now to cher- 
ish. 



364 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

I have been a very close and interested observer of Gen- 
eral Wise's political course in later years. Of many of his 
public acts and speeches I have very warmly approved ; 
others of them I have very decidedly condemned. I have 
never ceased, though, to sympathize kindly with him on 
account of some very generous and striking traits of char- 
acter tor which I felt bound to give him credit. His per- 
sonal bravery is as undisputed as that of the Chevalier 
Bayard hi nisei i*. His integrity and truth have well nigh 
passed into a proverb, and his complete exemption from 
what Virgil calls the auri sacra fames has been creditably 
conspicuous in every stage of his long and somewhat tem- 
pestuous career. His temperament is a remarkably mer- 
curial one; he is far more excitable than ordinary men, 
and phrenologists would upon I he slightest examination 
of his well-formed cranium pronounce his organ of com- 
bativeness to be developed in a manner very remarkable; 
to which circumstance, I doubt not, he is in a great de- 
gree indebted for the manly and persevering efficiency 
which he has manifested in every good cause in whose 
furtherance his energies have at different times become 
enlisted. That Mr. Wise is richly endowed with those 
qualities which tend most to give suecess and celebrity in 
the field of popular discussion, is a proposition which no 
man who is at all acquainted with him would think for a 
moment of denying, lie writes also with great facility, 
and when he chooses to do so, is capable of expressing 
himself in a spirited, vigorous, and exceedingly pointed 
style, such, in fact, as would do credit to any of the more 
distinguished authors that our country has yet produced. 
He has occasionally written at great length upon subjects 
not very interesting to the more numerous class of Amer- 
ican readers, and has, therefore, in such instances, failed 
to secure such uniform approval of the deliberate emana- 
tions of his genius as would, perhaps, have been accorded 



CASKET <>F REMINISCMCES. 365 

him. But I have seen some specimens of his power as a 
writer which conclusively demonstrate that lie lacked 
only a little more care lor hisown literary reputation, and 
a somewhat more painstaking spirit, to command uni- 
versal recognition as a hold, original thinker, and as one 
of the most vigorous, persuasive, and eloquent writers 
that has appeared in this generation. I exceeding doubt 
whether Virginia has given birth, in the present century, to 
a man of more genius than Henry A. Wise; and T have 
observed with much satisfaction of late that he is giving 
close attention to works of science and to the develop- 
ment of great economical truths — truths which have a 
real and almost inappreciable value to all the States of the 
South and to Virginia in particular, at the present trying 
period of her history. The last of the more deliberate 
productions of General Wise, in the line just mentioned, 
is an address delivered by him recently "before the 
Literary Societies of Roanoke College, in Salem, A"ir- 
ginia." The important subject discussed by him is very 
distinctly presented on the first page of his admirable lec- 
ture, and in the following striking words: 

North America is yet new, and, God he praised! is yet hopeful. My 
theme, then, is : 

"The physical structure of the domain of the United States, and its 
effect in the past and the present, and its probable effect in the future, 
upon their progress, power, peace, commerce^ ami constitutions of gov- 
ernment." 

A more comprehensive and inspiring subject than that 
herein indicated has never engaged the attention of men 
of thoughtful and scrutinizing minds in any age of the 
world. To say that General Wise has done justice to this 
grand and important theme would he hut moderate praise, 
as all discerning and fair-minded men will say who may 
read his interesting and edifying address. As a specimen 
of the calm and philosophical style in which his views are 



366 CASKET <>F REMINISCENCES. 

enunciated T extract, almost at random, the following 
paragraph : 

Prior to the year 1803 the United States were comparatively eon- 
strained in their limits, but the epoch of that date determined the na- 
tional supremacy of' North America at least, if not eventually of the 
world. Mr. Jefferson solved the problem by acquiring a territory 
which conjoined the physical geography of the continent with the 
powers which governed its settlements. The Missouri and Mississippi 
river- were both made ours; the mouth of the latter was joined politi- 
cally with its head; outlets were opened; conflicting riparian rights 
no longer obstructed internal or foreign trade; mountain ranges and 
water-sheds and quays of commerce were put under the same sov- 
ereignty, and the New World was spanned to the Pacific by an empire 
of the United States. This policy was completed in the acquisition of 
Florida in 1819 with her barricade of the Gulf stream, and nature was 
followed in her plan of a whole and compact country. Then the Gov- 
ernment of the United States was conjoined to the physical powers and 
causes which control the continent and its destinies. 

The following additional extract will be read with in- 
terest : 

The junction of the physical geography of the country, with its po- 
litical powers, by the acquisition of Louisiana and Florida, was the 
first epoch, of internal trade; and the second commenced with the arti- 
ficial lines from the coast to the interior, by roads and canal-, trans- 
verse to the natural lines of valleys and rivers. George Washington, 
in this, as in everything else, was foremost in conceiving and com- 
mencing the tirst and most important artificial lines. With that almost 
preternatural prescience which was to be looked for only from such 
vvisc'om and virtue as Gou gave him. pre-eminently he foresaw the 
necessity of connecting the month of the Ohio midway the valley of 
the Mississippi, and midway between the lakes and the Gulf of Mexico, 
with the month of the Chesapeake hay. midway the Atlantic coast, on 
the same parallel of latitude. We can hardly imagine that then he 
contemplated the great artificial belt of transit which is now begun be- 
tween the Pacific and Atlantic coast, passing through the whole inte- 
rior of the continent. But he did foresee the true eastern terminus of 
that belt, and projected the Chesapeake and Ohio and the James River 
and Kanawha canals, and they are now the most important works in 
this country yet to be constructed, to reach the great interior by the 
shortest and cheapest routes of trade, and to bind the extremest parts 
of this vast country together by the strongest bands of union. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 36? 

1 wish I had space to set forth here what General Wise 
so nobly and perspicuously says in support of the proposi- 
tion that — 

The Mississippi river, by its flow in the center from north to south, 
proved the surest cordon of the [Jnion of these States, the North with 
the South. 

I can not refrain from citing what he afterward enun- 
ciates so impressively as to the effect of the late civil war 
in bringing about the extinction of slavery : 

That cause alone (slavery) made the Southern States stagnant. The 
globe would not be habitable if its oceans were not agitated by storms, 
evaporated by the sun, congealed by frost, and cleansed by perpetual 
currents. And as of the currents of air and of the waters it may be 
said that they often conflict with each other, yet their very cyclones 
and whirlpools are made by God's providence to give motion and puri- 
fication and life ; so of our civil war it may be said, I hope, in time to 
come, that it gave a new life to the country and all its parts, which 
may atone for the many precious lives which were taken away by its 
''lire and sword.*' Nothing but infra-territorial war could have given 
this new life : and it was sent by God, not only because the exodus of 
slavery had come, but to make the motion of commerce and arts and 
migra ion southward. The two Virginias will now be filled with pop- 
ulation from abroad and from other States at home, and the whole 
South will soon be strong enough to do a great moral duty on their 
part. 

If these views be sound, (and who will now contest 
them?) how can any reasonable man doubt the justice 
and wisdom of the constitutional amendments which se- 
cured to the Hieaven-emaneipated colored race those civil 
rights without which freedom would be but the most 
cruel of mockeries ? I shall not willingly believe that a 
man of General Wise's sagacity could fail to perceive that 
the communication of the right of suffrage to the freed- 
men of the South was the natural and indispensable ac- 
companiment of universal amnesty to those of the white 
race recently in rebellion. Had this important safeguard 
been promptly and voluntarily accorded by the ancient 
white residents themselves of the South, immediately after 



368 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

the war bad closed, so that the colored inhabitants of 
that section might not have been thrown upon thecarpet- 
bag gentry for protection, it must now be most manifest 
to all that this most docile and affectionate race would 
long since have become thoroughly assimilated in feeling, 
as they doubtless are in interest^ with those who had pre- 
viously held them in servitude ; and this Republic would 
some time ago have enjoyed that repose and prosperity 
which General Wise himself seerns so ardently to covet. 
It is to be hoped that a man of General Wise's abilities 
and popularity will not be inactive at this important mo- 
ment in our history as a people in reconciling nil good 
and true men to each other upon the only possible basis 
of permanent concord and prosperity: " The Constitution 
as it />•, and the laws enacted for the enforcement thereof" 
I trust to be excused for saying that such a man as Gene- 
ral Henry A. Wise has no right to hide his light under a 
bushel now when the country seems so much to need its 
guiding influence, more especially as 1 see from the news, 
paper reports that ex-Senator Hunter, who was so active, 
in his own peculiar mode, in bringing on the late civil 
war, and who is, next to deli". Davis, personally responsi- 
ble for all its dire consequences, is iow pursuing a course 
well calculated to revive and perpetuate agitation, and 
place the whole colored population of the South in a 
state of never-ending antagonism to the white inhabitants 
of that region. Senator Hunter is the best specimen now 
extant of the American political Bourbonite, or that pe- 
culiar class of worthies who never forget anything and 
never learn anything; audit' it is true, as I am told is 
the case, that he is now every day insulting the whole 
colored population of Virginia by asserting that " expe- 
rience has shown that they are not true Virginians, 
although they be native born, and that they are aliens in 
feeling and sentiment, in sympathy and in sensibilities," 



CASKKT OK REMINISCENCES'. S63 

it is high time that some such bold cava Her as General 
Wise should gird on his armor to prevent the building 
up anew of the carpet-hag interest, which I repeat owes 

its origin and eontinued existence alone to sneli madness 
as is now being perpetrated by those in Virginia and else- 
where who utter such unpractical nonsense as is daily 
reported to the public from Mr. Hunter's lips. It really 
seems to me surprising that a high-bred Virginia gentle- 
man like Mr. Hunter, after having sought so earnestly 
the restoration of his political rights at the hands of Con- 
gress, as he is known to have done, and after having had 
bis disabilities so magnanimously relieved by that body, 
should thus seize the earliest opportunity presented to 
him of making known to the world that he feels not a 
particle of gratitude for the favor extended him. I have 
a very painful recollection of the course pursued by this 
distinguished gentleman and bis late colleague, Mr. Ma- 
son, in the Virginia Democratic Convention of 1860, held 
at Charlottesville. The latter I then saw for the last 
time at a very numerous assemblage of the people who 
constitute the celebrated Tenth Legion in the valley of 
Virginia. Mr. Mason addressed that meeting in a very, 
plain and frank manner, and in language not deticient in' 
distinctness, avowed the fell purpose which the faction 
represented by him bad then in view. When he closed 
bis speech, and [ rose to respond, he became much agi- 
tated, (though I certainly violated no rule of courtesy.) 
and as [proceeded to unfold the whole scheme of seditious 
resistance then on foot, and to warn my fellow-country- 
men of the dangers impending, hundreds yet livingsaw this 
gentleman leap from the back window of the court-house 
where Ave were speaking, evidently for the purpose of 
getting as quickly as be could beyond the sounds of popu- 
lar indignation then tbunderingly breaking forth. I 
have never yet seen one of the prominent fomenters of 
24r ° 



370 CASKET QV REMINISCENCES. 

sedition that was able calmly to stand fire, and T should 
myself willingly travel several hundred miles to hear 
General Wise respond to one of Mr. Hunter's drowsy, 
phlegmatic, and over-crammed political discourses. 

My first personal acquaintance with General Wise was 
formed under very peculiar circumstances, lie had fought 
for a long time in support of the Confederate cause most 
valiantly and faithfully. He had for several years in suc- 
cession been compelled to go through as man}' trials and 
sufferings as any man who participated in that struggle.' 
A cold-hearted and obstinate executive chief, for reasons 
which I could never precisely divine, had kept him in an 
official position far beneath the grade of his abilities and 
the value of his actual services. He had still fought on, 
at the head of his noble legion, with uncomplaining pa- 
tience, while he saw daily and hourly men of far inferior 
capacity, and with no real claims to special consideration 
and respect, placed abone him on the roll of. promotion. 
At length the disastrous affair of Roanoke Esland occurred, 
at which fatal spot he lost a valiant and accomplished son, 
whose budding merits had already awakened expectations 
of early and brilliant distinction. Just about this time 
illiberal and unjust rumors were set afloat by persons 
envious of General Wise's growing fame, which gave him 
peculiar annoyance. A report which he made of his own 
military conduct on a mosl important occasion was sent 
to the War Department in Richmond, where Mr. Judah 
P. Benjamin was playing the part of the old Old Man of 
the Sea whom Sinbad describes. Mr. Benjamin would 
not acknowledge officially the reception of General Wise's 
report unless lie would consent to let it pass through the 
hands of General, linger, his superior in command, an 
individual whom he well knew to be deeply inimical to 
him. and who was directly interested in shifting a most 
crushing military responsibility from his own shoulders 



CASKET OF REMltflSCEKCES. Bf1 

to those of General Wise ; so that the latter was left 
without any adequate means of vindicating his own con- 
duct as an officer. 

It was precisely under these circumstances that that 
courteous and high-bred gentleman, Colonel James Lyons, 
General Wise's brother-in-law, came to me and urged 
that 1 should in the House of Representatives offer a res- 
olution demanding of the Secretary of War that he should 
send to that body a copy of General Wise's report, with 
a view to its examination there, and its eventual publica- 
tion. This act of mere justice to a meritorious officer who, 
I was satisfied, was undergoing cruel persecution, I could 
not in honor refuse to perform. 1 succeeded in attaining 
the object of the resolution, upon which I was asked by 
Mr. Lyons to go over to his own professional office, where 
I was told that General Wise was, for the purpose of 
enabling this gentleman to tender to me his thanks for 
the kindness exercised toward him. This he soon did in 
a manner most knightly and impressive ; since which 
time I have not had the honor of meeting him or of hold- 
ing a*iy direct intercourse with him whatever. 



872 i ASKKT OF REMINISCENCES. 



REMINISCENCE No. XXXIV. 

VICKSBURG SENTINEL — DR. HAG AN — GENERAL ADAMS — GOV- 
ERNOR A. G. M'NUTT. 

Great and imperishable is the fame of Vicksburg! Re- 
nowned alike in peace and in war ! I beheld it when in 
point of population and trade it was little more than an 
ordinary village. I resided there when many persons yet 
survived who mentioned to me, as a matter within their 
own personal knowledge, the fact that the beautiful and 
romantic site which has since been the theater of so many 
great and memorable events had been exchanged bv its un- 
prophetic owner for a pitiful horse, not worth a single hun- 
dred dollars. It was my fortune to move through the 
streets of Vicksburg not many years after my eyes Lad 
first rested upon her primeval, cottage-like residences, 
when her thronged thoroughfares had become the resorl 
and permanent abode of wealth, refinement, and intelli- 
gence, and when her steep, alluvial hills had been over- 
spread with splendid edifices, which the nobles of the 
earth might have been content to inhabit; when learned 
and upright judges were peacefully and satisfactorily ad- 
ministering the justice of the land in well-constructed 
court-houses, and eloquent and accomplished barristers 
were almost every day making speeches, such as would 
have done honor to any people under the sun. I have 
heard political discussions in Vicksburg, continued from 
day to day, in thv hearing of such assemblages as even 
Cicero or Demosthenes would not have scorned toaddress, 
and upon questions of greater dignity and importance 
than either the populace of Home or Athens ever had 
submitted to them. Nearly all of those with whom I once 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 373 

delighted to hold free and fraternal commune in Vicks- 
burg, forty years ago, have either passed to the grave or 
have migrated to distant regions. Were I now to visit 
this scene of my early exertions, it is possible that I would 
not meet a do/en faces that I should recognize, and I am 
quite certain that I might go there and spend a week in 
some frequented public house without awakening any 
very marked sensation in any segment of that bustling 
and rapidly improving metropolis. 

It is not probable that I shall ever again survey those 
loved localities once so familiar to me. I have little in- 
clination to institute minute inquiries now as to Iioav 
many of rny acquaintances and cherished friends of a 
former day are yet lingering where I last encountered 
them ; but yet are there incidents which occurred in my 
young days of hopefulness and vigor of which I yet eher- 
ish recollections alike pleasant and mournful. 

hi 1832 I established, in connection with an esteemed 
friend and brother-in-law, Mr. R. P. (Jatlett, the newspa- 
per known as The Mississvppian, for many years reeog- 
nized, in subsequent years, and in the hands of several 
sueeessive editors, as the faithful and efficient organ of 
what was known as the Democratie party of Mississippi. 
Caesar, when falling before the violence of infuriate con- 
spirators, is said to have exclaimed : " Et tit Brute, mi 
jili !" The dying eagle has been poetically depictured as 
doubly bewailing his own death-wound when he found 
the arrow which had pierced his vitals had. been feathered 
with the plumage of his own wing. And so I, if at all 
given to lamentation over the past, might, perhaps, with 
some reason, complain that the most unsparing assailment 
with which I have been visited at several noted periods 
of my bustling career has originated in the columns of 
that far-famed journal, in relation to which Governor 
MeXut t is said to have ejaculated, in the very latest mo- 



374 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

■ 

ments of his checkered life : " Where is the Mississippian ?' 
I lived long enough in Mississippi to find the time-honored 
Democratic party there resolved into a mere Secession tac- 
tion, and to have painful assurance given me that no man 
could any longer support his long-cherished principles 
upon the soil of Mississippi, in opposition to the behests 
of shallow and selfish factionists, without finding himself 
denounced as a political changeling, an eccentric, a mad- 
man, and a dotard ; and in the face of all this I could well 
have smiled, had I not feared that those by whom such 
epithets were so unkindly applied would themselves in 
the end be fated to suffer almost beyond human tolerance 
as the natural consequence of their own delusion and folly. 
No man, I assert confidently, has ever loved the people of 
the State of Mississippi more than I have done. They are, 
in the main, an intelligent, high-spirited, and liberty-lov- 
ing people. My heart has often bled over the sufferings 
they have been compelled to endure since last I had an 
opportunity of raising a warning voice in their midst in 
reference to the manifold and perhaps remediless evils into 
which the maniacal counsels of others have so wofully be- 
trayed them; of men who have nearly all already gone 
down to dishonorable graves, or who survive as wretched 
monuments of public contempt and ridicule. I trust not 
to be suspected of insincerity when I declare that I yet 
love the Mississippi of to-day, dressed as she is, in the 
sight of the whole world, in the garments of humiliation 
and sorrow, far more than I did the same Mississippi in 
the days of her palmy prosperity and power. I do most 
profoundly commiserate those troubles which, alas ! it is 
not. at all in my power to alleviate. My mind often re- 
verts to scenes which had their progress in that far-off 
sunny region in former years, and a few more of these I 
now propose to call up for the consideration of those who 
shall honor these Reminiscences with a transient notice 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 375 

In the year 1881 the somewhat memorable administra- 
tion of Governor A. G. McNutt reached its termination. 
He was succeeded in the office which he had for four years 
occupied by an individual of very different temper and 
character. I allude to Governor Tucker, who was a man 
of sound and vigorous intellect, of a chastened and 
moderate ambition, and of a lofty independence worthy 
of ;ill praise. The discussions which had taken place in 
the canvass preceding Governor Tucker's election had 
been of a nature calculated not a little to gall the sensi- 
bilities of Governor MeNutt, and mortify his pride. Gov- 
ernor Tucker had taken the ground that his immediate 
predecessor, in subscribing and causing to be sold the 
bonds of the State for the purpose of bringing the Union 
Bank into existence, had exceeded his constitutional au- 
thority, and made himself responsible for evils under the 
experience of which the people of the State were even 
then audibly groaning. Without goin^; at this moment 
into the merits of a question at that time much antl 
warmly controverted on both sides of the Atlantic, it is 
sufficient to say that Governor McNutt, though himself 
vehemently opposed to the payment of these same bonds, 
and ambitious to enhance his popularity as much as possi- 
ble by the agitation of the question of their repudiation, 
was yet by no means pleased with the frank and out- 
spoken manner in which Governor Tucker had under- 
taken to allude to the facts which lixed upon him the 
chief responsibility of their issue and negotiation. Gov- 
ernor Tucker, therefore, on coming into office, very soon 
found Governor McNutt exceedingly hostile to him, and 
inclined to cast as many impediments as he could in the 
way of his administration. This was truly an embarrass- 
ing state of affairs ; for Governor McNutt, who was one 
of the best haters I ever knew, and who, I am sure, was 
never known to forgive any human being that had ever 



376 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

done him injury of any kind, very soon made it evident 
that he was far from intending to confine his opposition 
to unkind and sneerful remarks upon his official acts, and 
that he had resolved to do what he could to array against 
him and his administration several leading Democratic 
newspapers, the conductors of which had long recognized 
him as a sort of political oracle. It is needless now to 
speculate as to what precise motives influenced Governor 
McNutt in pursuing the course which has just heen de- 
scribed. It may have been in part owing to his desire to 
hold under his permanent control the parry machinery of 
every kind which he had been for several years permitted 
to wield with unresisted sway, together with the fear 
which he entertained that Governor Tucker could not he 
induced to favor his election to the United States Senate, 
which position it was already well known he was confi- 
dently expecting to reach. It is probable that he was, at 
least in part, actuated by feelings of personal ill-will to- 
ward the just-minded and truly patriotic man who had 
now succeeded him. Certain it is, that Governor Tucker 
had hardly been inaugurated before the storm of persecu- 
tion began to rage. A dozen little newspapers, known to 
be completely under Governor McNutt's influence, were 
perpetually pouring forth their ill-natured complaints 
against the Governor then in office, and endeavoring in 
every way effectually to break down his public character. 
^or did his private reputation altogether escape their ani- 
madversion ; and, indeed, all persons officially connected 
with him, or who presumed in a public manner to express 
their disapproval of this wholly unprovoked warfare, 
had to come in for their share of opprobrium and ridicule. 
By far the most intellectual and accomplished of those 
who had enlisted in this terrible war of defamation was 
an individual who was then resident in Vicksbu rg, and 
who was there occupying the editorial tripod of a, paper 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 377 

called The Sentinel. This gentleman 1 had known quite 
familiarly long before he had located in the Stale of Mis- 
sissippi, and my relations with him, though not those of 
close andcontidential intimacy, had been uniformly marked 
with mutual civility and kindness. Dr. James Flagan 
was in many respects a very remarkable man. lie was 
horn in Ireland, had been thoroughly educated at the 
University of Dublin, and, after attaining manhood, had 
been an unremitted reader of books, so as to have become 
a man of great and varied knowledge. His pen had been 
kept in almost constant exercise for many years, in conse- 
quence of which he had acquired a style of composition 
at once clear, polished, vigorous, and flowing. Ila chiefly 
delighted in satire and ridicule, and in both of these he 
was most potential. He was exceedingly ambitious of 
notoriety, and a little reckless of truth and justice when 
he thought he had it in his power to exercise his powers 
of detraction upon some individual of established repu- 
tation and of known influence, whom less aspiring con- 
tributors to the newspaper press did not deem it altogether 
prudent to assail, lie located himself, about the year 
1829 or 1830, in the little village of Occoquan, in the 
State of Virginia, and here, I believe, had for some time 
practiced the profession of medicine. While thus sojourn- 
ing at a point only a few miles distant from the residenoe 
of one of the most celebrated and accomplished men that 
Virginia has ever produced — Judge Alexander (1. Dade - 
be, in some way, got knowledge of the fact that this gen- 
tleman, and several of the judges of the general court of 
the State besides, had been in the habit for several years 
of making their annual journey to Richmond by water, 
instead of proceeding thither by a much shorter land 
route, and of charging mileage for the whole number of 
miles which they had to travel along the Potomac, the 
Chesapeake bay, and the river James. Dr. ilagan re- 



378 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

solved to ventilate this matter, and he did so in a series 
of the most cutting article I ever read. Judge Dade at- 
tempted to respond to his objurgatory criticisms, but, not- 
withstanding his high abilities, was most decidedly worsted 
in the conflict. This affair gave Dr. Hagan much eclat, 
and he resolved to seek a wider theater for the display of 
his extraordinary powers. I saw him myself for the first 
time in the summer of 183(3, at one of the hotels in Wash- 
ington, lie sought my acquaintance, and we soon fell' 
into an animated conversation upon the questions involved 
in the Presidential election of that period. The Doctor 
then professed a warm admiration of Mr. Calhoun, and of 
the extreme State-rights theory, of which Mr. Calhoun 
was the most prominent expounder. lie was bitterly op- 
posed to Mr. Van Buren, and assailed him with much se- 
verity in this interview. We talked for several hours 
with much heat and acrimony on both sides, but without 
any decided approach to a personal quarrel. When I next 
met with him he had taken up his residence in Vicks- 
burg, where he soon after assumed that vocation to which 
a few years subsequent he unfortunately fell a victim. 

Xo such editorial writer as Doctor Hagan had ever before 
a pi "eared in the State of Mississippi, and Governor McN"utt 
was shrewd enough to discern at once that it might fa- 
cilitate the accomplishment of his own views of individ- 
ual ambition very much if he could in someway manage 
to conciliate this rising genius. What he did tor this 
purpose I have never precisely ascertained, but it is cer- 
tain that Dr. Hagan, despite some noted differences be- 
tween himself and Governor McNutt, upon several polit- 
ical questions of great importance, became in process of 
time completely devoted to that personage, and the Senti- 
nel was by all recognized as Governor McNutt's veritable 
political organ. The manifold corruptions of the bank- 
ing system then existing in Mississippi opened to Doctor 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 379 

Hagan a rich and inviting field lor the exercise of his 
peculiar talents. For several years he attacked with great 
bitterness the acts and characters of those whom hejudged 
to be chiefly responsible Tor the financial evils then sorely 
oppressing all classes of the people. Every now and then 
he issued a bulletin against Centralism, of which he 
seemed to stand in the greatest dread. His strictures 
upon the conduct of individuals in conspicuous social po- 
sition attracted remarkable attention, and the withering 
severity of his satiric allusions to persons whose apparent 
prosperity was calculated of itself to awaken anvy in ig- 
noble bosoms naturally constituted him a very Corypheus 
of the suffering population. I do not think that any 
other editor that this country has produced has been 
known with impunity to indulge, for so long a space of 
time, as freely as Dr. Hagan, in language of the harshest 
personal invective. His newspaper had actually become 
an object of mingled dread and hatred to large numbers 
of peace-loving and law-respecting people all over the 
Southwestern States, [t was sought for every where with 
eagerness, and was read with the utmost interest by thou- 
sands and tens of thousands all over the country. I had 
been in constant apprehension for several months anterior 
to his tragic ^\u\ that the patient forbearance with which 
his terrible diatribes had been so long tolerated would 
soon give place to feelings of fiery resentment on the part 
of some high-spirited citizen, and perhaps to some attempt 
at a desperate and bloody revenge. I therefore visited 
Vicksburg just ten days before Dr. I lagan's demise, and 
remonstrated with him in the most solemn and earnest 
manner against the further pursuance of that course of 
sweeping revilement in which he bad been for several years 
engaged, and which I ventured to assure him could only be 
productive in the end of great mischief, as well to the 
public as to himself. I brought to his attention the fact 



380 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

that his abilities were of so hiajh a east that he could 
have no difficulty whatever in reaching the loftiest posi- 
tion of civil dignity if lie would but pay more regard 
to the rules of social decorum and the laws of a hijrh- 
bred courtesy, lie confessed very frankly the soundness 
of ray admonitory suggestion, and declared to me with 
much apparent feeling that he had several times resolved 
upon conducting his paper in a manner more civil and 
kindly, but that he had found the outside pressure upon 
him for the preparation of articles of a fiercely denuncia- 
tory character too strong to be resisted. 

After this interview I saw him no more. When Gov- 
ernor Tucker had been nominated for the high executive 

o 

office which he afterward so worthily filled, an individual 
was associated with him upon the State Democratic ticket 
as a candidate for the responsible office of Treasurer, in 
support of whom I found myself not able to vote with- 
out incurring the loss of my own self-respect. His name 
was Graves. I had long known him as an unscrupulous 
demagogue, and I was satisfied that, if elected to the 
position of Treasurer, some great act of official treachery 
would infallibly ensue. I was, indeed, so fully persuaded 
of the danger of electing this miscreant that I did not hes- 
itate to warn my neighbors and fellow-citizens, and in the 
plainest language, of the mischief likely to arise from their 
giving him their support in opposition to the worthy 
individual, Dr. Curtis, (now a respected citizen of 
California,) whom the Whigs had nominated on their 
party ticket. Party allegiance, though, was too strong 
to be overcome by reason or considerations of patriotism, 
so Mr. Graves was foisted upon the State treasury. There 
he had not been 'more than a week or two before he was 
able to project a scheme of fraud of which there are 
but few parallels in the history of any country. A large 
amount of the money of the State, deposited in his keep- 



CASKET Of REMINISCENCES. 381 

ing, was dexterously abstracted and applied to his own 
use. So soon as the discovery of his misconduct in this 
affair was made, Governor Tucker took the most prompt 
measures, alike to save the State from further pecuniary 
loss and to bring this enormous malefactor to justice. An 
accomplished and venerable jurist, the late George W. 
Adams, was employed to aid the Attorney General in 
the institution of a suit in chancery, and, at the instance 
of certain public-spirited citizens, I agreed to co-operate 
with the same officer in the commencement of appropri- 
ate criminal proceedings. The dignity of the case was 
such that we determined to demand of the Chief Justice 
of the State, the lion. William L. Sharkey, to act as a 
Court of Inquiry, and before this learned and upright 
officer for several days we were diligently arraying the 
testimony against the accused, when, on a certain Sab- 
bath day, (the court having adjourned over until Mon- 
day,) the wife of the accused having been humanely al- 
lowed to visit him, he adroitly exchanged vestments with 
her, and made his escape to parts unknown. 

Meanwhile the chancery suit spoken of was in active 
progress. Governor Tucker had paid Judge Adams for 
his invaluable services therein out of the contingent fund 
of the State the very moderate fee of five hundred dol- 
lars. 

So soon as this transaction became known at Vieksburg, 
where Governor McKutt chanced to be at the moment, 
an article appeared in the columns of the Sentinel, headed 
"More Stealing in Jackson," in which both Governor 
'fucker and Judge Adams were mentioned in terms of 
the coarsest and most insulting crimination. It is not 
probable that either of these upright personages would 
have felt called upon to notice this attack, which in truth 
could not possibly have done either of them the smallest 
permanent detriment. But it happened that Daniel W. 



382 CASKET OF RBMINISCEKCES. 

Adams, a young and high-spirited son of Judge Adams, 
who had returned home from college only a day or two 
previously, got sight of this article in the Sentinel before 
its appearance had become known to his father, and ex- 
cited, as it was hut natural he should be, to the highest 
pitch of indignation, he proceeded at once to Vicksburg 
in order to seek atonement for the outrage which had 
been perpetrated. He did not know Dr. Hagan person- 
ally, but lie had heard that he was a singularly brave and 
determined man ; that lie generally went armed, and that 
he had before that time been uniformly successful in the 
various conflicts in which he had been engaged. On 
reaching Vicksburg this deeply-aggrieved and highly-en- 
raged young man went immediately in pursuit of Dr. 
Hagan. He found him returning from a dinner-party, 
owing to which tact, most probably, lie was for the mo- 
ment unarmed; of which state of things, though, it was 
impossible that Adams should have been apprised. He 
accosted Hagan, and inquired of him whether he was the 
editor of the Sentinel, which paper he then held in his 
hand. On being answered in the affirmative he called his 
attention to the offensive article in relation to his father, 
and demanded an immediate retraxit of it, Dr. Hagan 
made no reply, but rushed upon young Adams, seized him 
strongly by the waist, and quickly prostrated him upon 
the earth. Adams could not but then regard his situa- 
tion as one of great peril. He had been overcome in the 
struggle which had just taken place. In falling violently 
to the ground his eyes had been rilled with dust, and he 
had every reason to apprehend that Hagan, who yet held 
him firmly in his grasp, would, in a second or two, either 
cut his throat or blow out his brains. Under these cir- 
cumstances he did just what I presume every man of 
adequate presence of mind would do if similarly situated : 
he drew one of his own pistols from his bosom, reached 



CASKET OF ftEMlfflSCENCES. 383 

up to the back part of Hagan's bead, placed in contact 
with it the muzzle of the pistol, and tired. Hagan re- 
ceived the contents of the pistol in the cerebellum, and 
immediately expired. 

When Adams had succeeded in releasing himself from 
the grasp of his now exanimate antagonist and had risen 
to his feet, he found himself surrounded by a very excited 
crowd. When asked who had slain Hagan he replied at 
once that he had done so, alleging that he had only used 
violence in defense of his own person and life, and pro- 
ceeded to deliver himself up for judicial examination. 
When this examination took place he was allowed to give 
bail for his appearance at the next Circuit Court of War- 
ren county; where an indictment for murder having been 
found against him he demanded, through his counsel, a 
change of venue to the county of Hinds ; and, in a month 
or two after, he was tried in presence of a vast assemblage 
of citizens, and honorably acquitted of the charge which 
had been brought against him. I must necessarily have 
been familiar with all the facts in this extraordinary case, 
as I was one of the attorneys engaged in Adams' defense. 
1 was aided on the occasion by two very distinguished 
advocates — the late George Yerger and the late John L 
Guion. The district attorney did not prosecute alone, 
two lawyers of some standing having been employed to 
assist him. It is rather a curious fact that one of these 
last-mentioned attorneys, whose name was Brennan, about 
a year afterward, came to my office one day in order to 
obtain my professional services in a case of his own which 
had just arisen for judicial cognizance. He had slain an 
aged negro man whom he had in his employment, and 
under circumstances of the most aggravated character. 
Much local excitement had been engendered, and, from 
his own account of the matter, I was satisfied that, if 
tried, nothing could save him from the scaffold but per- 



384 CASKET OF REMINISCENCE,^. 

jury in the jury box. I at once told AFr. Brennan frankly 
that his case was beyond remedy ; that no lawyer could 
defend him successfully without resorting to expedients 
altogether outside of ray own professional experience. He 
readily took the hint, and at once fled from that part of 
the world ; since which time I have never heard of him. 

Young Adams, in a few months after the termination 
of his trial, commenced a most brilliant and successful 
career as a lawyer in the city of Jackson, whence he after- 
ward removed to New Orleans. While yet in Mississippi, 
though, he became a member of the State Senate, and 
took a very leading part in connection with the present 
distinguished Governor Alcorn ami others in defeating 
the scheme of secession, then in active progress. I Low it 
happened, and at what precise period it was, that he was 
persuaded to take part in the late civil war on the side 
<>!' the Confederate States I am not prepared to explain. 
But I can confidently avouch that a braver, moi" honor- 
able, and generous-hearted gentleman I have never known, 
and that he possessed intellectual gifts which, had he 
lived long enough, under circumstances at all propitious, 
must have inevitably secured to him the highest honors 
of his profession. After receiving man}' and grievous 
wounds in fiercely-contested battles during the late war, 
at its termination General Adams located for a short 
period in the city of New r York, where lie is understood 
to have made a highly-favorable impression. He subse- 
quently returned to his old domicil in the city of New 
Orleans, where a, year or two since he deceased v^ry sud- 
denly, and, as I have been told, while engaged in drafting 
some important judicial paper. 

After having been employed in the defense of General 
Adams I had the honor to be invited to deliver a funeral 
eulogy upon Or. Ilagan, and I agreed to do so should 
the performance of this duty be insisted on, but took 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 385 

the occasion to allege that my position as counsel in 
opposition to the prosecution then pending I thought 
would make it proper that the task proposed should he 
devolved on some one else. # I do not know what after- 
ward occurred in this matter. 

T have never heard of a newspaper other than the Sen- 
tinel which stood so connected with tragic occurrences of 
one kind or another. After the decease of Dr. Hagan, a 
Mr. Rian became its editor. lie was, in a few months, 
slain in a duel by Mr. Ilammet, of the Vicksburg Whig. 
A third editor, Captain Ilickey, slew Dr. Maclin in a 
street-fight, growing out of some newspaper publication. 
Dr. James Fall, while superintending the management of 
the same paper, had to draw trigger twice in vindication, 
as lie supposed, of his right of free thought and speech. 
Mr. Jenkins, who was the editor of the Sentinel in 1848, 
and whom I had known most favorably from the days of 
his early boyhood, fell in deadly conflict with Mr. Crabb, 
(also known to me for many years and highly respected,) 
as the result of a political quarrel which had occurred the 
night before at a public meeting, where I chanced to be 
one of the speakers. A Mr. Roy experienced a similar 
fate while engaged in an exciting editorial career in the 
same city, and not long after his paper had come forth 
as a furious advocate of the reopening of the African 
slave trade! 

The Mr. Crabb of whom I have spoken was the only 
son of that eminent jurist, Judge Crabb, of Tennessee, 
who, before he was thirty years of age, had become recog- 
nized as a lawyer of most remarkable learning and ability, 
and who, although he died in his thirty-fourth year, left 
behind him a, reputation for judicial ability and upright- 
ness seldom acquired even in a long lifetime of unremit- 
ting study and labor. Of his remarkable son, who, by a 
singular coincidence, died also in his thirty-fourth year, I 
25 r 



386 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

have a few special remarks now to make. After the un- 
fortunate conflict with Mr. Jenkins, already mentioned, 
had become the subject of judicial examination, and he 
had been honorably discharged, he removed to the State 
of California. There I found him on my arrival in that 
far-off region in the year 1854, a prominent member of 
the State Senate. His reputation for political ability was 
very high, and he had acquired a general popularity to 
which few men besides could justly lay claim. He mar- 
ried an amiable and accomplished Mexican lady, who had 
been born in the State of Sonora, and whose father and 
other relatives possessed large estates there of which they 
had been unjustly and cruelly deprived by the tyranny of 
a political faction bearing rule then in Sonora, from 
whose violence they had been forced to take refuge in 
California. Under these circumstances it was but natural 
that a man of Colonel Crabb's bold and enterprising tem- 
per should seek to reinstate his friends and relatives in 
the enjoyment of the rights of which they had been so 
lawlessly despoiled. 

In point of fact, he got up an association of young gen- 
tlemen in California, with a view to making an armed 
descent upon the State of Sonora, which was very near 
being completely successful. He had previously visited 
that region and effected an alliance with a strong body of 
the native inhabitants there, which would have been able 
to effect a complete civil revolution, but for the happen- 
ing of one or two events presently to be narrated. Col- 
onel Crabb, who was one of the Fillmore electors in 
California, in the year 1856, lingered so long in this in- 
teresting field of operations that his allies in Sonora, 
despairing of his coming, beeame reconciled to the Mex- 
ican Government. It smiis that in order to secure their 
own impunity they had to promise that if Colonel Crabb 
and his California associates should thereafter reach So- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 387 

nora they would manage to betray them into the hands 
of the Government, and thus aid in making them the 
subjects of exemplary vengeance. Of this state of things 
Colonel Crabb and his confiding friends — most of whom 
I knew personally — had no intimation. I saw the Colo- 
nel only a few days before he left California for the thea- 
ter of his expected operations. He was in fine spirits, full 
of hope as to the future, and in the enjoyment of almost 
exuberant, physical health. When he reached the fron- 
tiers of Sonora he was deluded into a conference with his 
former confederates which he had every reason to sup- 
pose to be one of a perfectly amicable character. He and 
his whole party were, in a few minutes, seized upon and 
mercilessly put to death ! Sorresco referent I The agoniz- 
ing news soon reached California not only that this once 
promising expedition had signally failed, but that the 
head of the lamented Crabb had been amputated after 
death and placed in a large glass vessel filled with spirits 
of wine, with the intention of exhibiting it to the rep- 
resentatives of the Mexican Government, in proof that 
this nefarious scheme of treachery had been consummated, 
and that his diabolical murderers had thus faithfully ex- 
ecuted their hideous compact of perfidy! 

It can not but be viewed as a somewhat curious and 
impressive coincidence that the celebrated William 
Walker, whose extraordinary career awakened so much 
interest at one time in every part of the civilized world 
as u The Grey-eyed Man of Destiny," and who underwent 
so dreadful a fate afterward in Honduras, was, like Crabb, 
a native of the " City of Rocks," Nashville, where, by 
many worthy people, both of these famous personages are 
yet held in high esteem, and over whose sad end many 
sincere tears have been shed. Walker and Crabb were 
for many years intimate and devoted friends, though in 
some important points of character they were wholly 
unlike. Peace to the ashes of both these young heroes ! 



388 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



REMINISCENCE No. XXXV. 

DAVIS — BRAGG — NEPOTISM — HINDMAN's BRUTALITIES. 

I feel called upon to recite one or two miscellaneous 
facts not heretofore recorded. These particulars would 
have been passed by bat for certain recent indiscreet 
movements of Mr. Davis, which have been already alluded 
to. 

It is not only surprising, but is even not a little ridicu- 
lous that this personage should now attempt to revive the 
feelings of rancor arising from the late war in the manner 
which has been heretofore noticed, when it is a well- 
known and undeniable fact that the Confederate Congress 
was compelled, several weeks before Mr. Davis' precipitate 
and inglorious flight from Richmond, to strip him of all 
his control of the military forces then warring for South- 
ern independence, and to deposit the exclusive management 
of its armies in the hands of that able, patriotic, and high- 
souled commander, General Robert E. Lee. Mr. Davis' 
silly and blustering attempt to nullify, by his usurping 
manifesto from Danville, a few days after the surrender 
of General Lee, that needed and judiciously-concluded ar- 
rangement, though quite in character, was perhaps the 
most disgusting specimen of official rhodomontade to 
which even the American Don Quixote and his meek and 
obedient squire, Sancho Panza Benjamin, had ever given 
vent. There is really nothing more gravely amusing in 
any of the scenes of adventure which marked the roman- 
tic career of the " Knight of the Rueful Countenance " than 
this same Parthian missive, dispatched by the ex-Presi- 
dent and his scampering Secretary of State, when prepar- 
ing to resume that ominous flight beyond the great 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 339 

" Father of Waters," especially considering the fact that 
by the fiat of a once over-observant Congress he had been 
fixed in a state of most disgraceful politieal " Coventry," 
at least so far as all future military movements were con- 
cerned. Mr. Davis certainly acted far more in conformity 
with his then politically emasculated condition when, a few 
days thereafter, he so adroitly donned the traveling gar- 
ments of some one of the gentler sex, and attempted to 
make his escape from the military pursuers, then close 
upon his heels, with bonnet on head and huge India-rubber 
wrapper investing his slender and wire-drawn membral 
appendages, almost reminding one of Falstaff's grotesque 
simulation of the now world-renowned nurse of Brentford. 
This puny effort at the Montgomery White Sulphur 
Springs to set afloat the absurd idea that General Lee and 
Joe Johnston were " cheated " into a dishonorable sur- 
render by the two over-cunning Union commanders with 
whom they had to deal, is obviously designed not only to 
bring discredit upon these two valiant and efficient Con- 
federate officers, but to suggest the idea in addition that, 
had he not been so injudiciously deprived of his executive 
chieftainship, the Confederate States would long since 
have attained the objects for which they had for four dis- 
astrous and blood-marked years so energetically contended. 
In this point of view Mr. Davis' maniacal outpouring at 
the Montgomery White Sulphur Springs the other day 
may be well regarded as a sort of long-withheld protest 
against the Congressional act which stripped him of his 
military insignia and turned him out plumeless upon the 
world, somewhat after the manner of the jackdaw when 
deprived of the peacock's feathers in which he had so os- 
tentatiously arrayed himself. 

There are many things which were done and said by 
Mr. Davis in Richmond during his memorable career 
there which have, for certain reasons, not been heretofore 



390 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

ventilated, but of which his present efforts to disturb the 
public quiet and drag the South into a renewed experience 
of evils from which she is now just beginning to recover 
seems to me to demand a frank and full exposure, in order 
to the counteraction of his yet cherished ambitious de- 
signs, and of opening even the eyes of all those of the 
feminine gender in the South who chance, as he boasts, to 
remain yet " unreconstructed." Seven years ago, in a 
hastily-written but strictly impartial work upon the events 
of the late civil war, I thus forbearingly spoke of Mr. Da- 
vis, and of others particularly connected with him, while 
he was playing the part of self-constituted Dictator in 
Richmond : 

"In reference to the proceedings of the Confederate Government, 
after my unhappy and tempestuous connection with it was formed, I 
should have very much to say under different circumstances from those 
which now exist, all of which may be -aid hereafter if it shall become 
apparent that the public mind has attained a condition in which it will 
be able to profit by the painful revelations which it will be in my power 
to make. But President Davis and his Cabinet are at this moment 
either in exile or in imprisonment ; his multitudinous official servitors 
have retired to private life, or are gloomy wanderers in foreign lands. 
Those who, in despite of what a few independent and high-spirited 
men could do to prevent the passage of certain baleful measures, suc- 
ceeded in enacting laws for the suspension of the great writ of liberty ; 
for the confiscation of the estates of all who could not conscientiously 
range themselves in opposition to the flag of their fathers ; for the con- 
scription of all male citizens capable of bearing arms, whether in 
friendly or hostile relations to the Confederate cause ; for the forcible 
impressment of private property, wheresoever situated, at the discre- 
tion of men temporarily endowed with military authority; for the 
declaration and enforcement of martial law ; and a number of acts be- 
sides of almost equal enormity ; those who sustained Mr. Davis in the 
appointment of inefficient and mischievous officials, to the exclusion Of 
the capable and the virtuous; who sanctioned the impolitic atid ungen- 
erous displacement of able and high-smiled military commanders, in 
order to make way for others whom the army despised, and the citizens 
at large both distrusted and hated— these persons, the valueless 
ephemera of an age fertile in inanities have nearly all disappeared from 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 391 

the jostling, chaotic stage whereupon they were severally enacting their 
parts, and 

u ' Like the baseless fabric of a vision, 

Left not a wreck behind.' 

"As to Mr. Davis, I must say that I regard him mainly as the un- 
fortunate victim of dark and dangerous political heresies, for which he 
is by no means primarily responsible, a victim, likewise, of the intrigu- 
ing machinations of cunning and unscrupulous managers, whose true 
character he w;is not capable of penetrating; as the dupe of adulation 
and false promises from abroad which might perchance have deceived 
men far more sagacious than himself; in fine, as the almost involun- 
tary instrument of dark and potential influences generated in the womb 
of revolution, which led him to claim andexercise powers, the employ- 
ment of winch, though utterly subversive of freedom, he may possibly 
have believed to be indispensable to the successful execution of the 
grand scheme of secession and Csesarism to which he had for so many 
years devoted the best energies of his soul and understanding. Far be 
it from me to wish evil to the late President of the Confederate States- 
He has been unfortunate, and T condole with him ; he has committed 
great and grievous errors, and I make all just allowance for them ; he 
is unhappy, and L sympathize with him ; he is in prison, and 1 pray 
night and day for his enlargement. Though he permitted his heartless 
Secretary of War last winter to deprive me of my own personal liberty 
and to retain me in ' durance vile ' until I was discharged on habeas 
rnr/)ii.s. alone on account of my struggling for pacification when I found 
both Congress and himself bent on the further prosecution of a war 
which they had themselves already rendered hopeless ; yet, so far from 
feeling resentment or unkindness on this account, I can say with truth 
that, having myself thrice suffered the loss of personal liberty within 
the last twelve months, i can, in reference to Mr. Davis' present for- 
lorn and suffering condition, painfully and sorrowingly exclaim (with 
a slight change of the immortal words of Virgil) in the language of 
Queen Dido to .Lucas, 

' Non ignarus mali. miseris succurrere disco.' '' 

I should have been glad had Mr. Davis left those who 
sincerely condemned his conduct in Richmond an oppor- 
tunity of being silent over many of his short-comings and 
shameless violations of principle. But as he has chosen 
again to bring himself forward as a fomenter of mischief, 
and as all his silly and slavish adulators seem not yet to 
have become ashamed of their former close affiliation 



392 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



with him, I shall now drag into distinct notice several 
dishonoring particulars which it would be but a foolish 
liberality to allow longer to remain in concealment. 

Only a day or two before I left Richmond, in the au- 
tumn of 1864, Mr. Fowle, a considerable merchant there, 
visited me for the purpose of calling attention to a matter 
which he conceived to be of the greatest importance. He 
assured me that for some months past it had been the 
practice of the Naval Department to send out of the ports 
of the Confederate States large orders to commereial cities 
abroad for the best wines, brandies, silks, and other things 
needful for the supply of persons of luxurious taste ; that 
these commodities were purchased with the money of the 
public treasury, along with supplies for the Confederate 
soldiery, and that whenever a fresh supply of the articles 
came in there was a formal assemblage in the Naval De- 
partment of the female heads of certain official families, 
including that of Mr. Davis himself, among whom, and 
their special friends and favorites, all these nice things 
were apportioned, and at the very low prices which had 
been paid for them abroad. 

Mr. Fowle assured me that this evil practice was greatly 
injuring the merchants of Richmond, and besought me 
to bring it at once to the notice of the Confederate Con- 
gress. A day or two subsequent, Colonel Orr, a Congres- 
sional Representative from Mississippi, (a brother of the 
late worthy Minister to Russia, and a gentleman of as 
much honor and intelligence as was then in Richmond,) 
came to my seat in the House of Representatives and be- 
sought me to introduce a resolution of inquiry on this 
subject, lie assured me that he had himself looked care- 
fully into the matter, and had found the facts above 
stated to be true to the letter. I consented to introduce 
a resolution of inquiry in regard to this affair, provided 
Colonel Orr would put his statement in writing, which he 
did. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 393 

I chanced not to remain long enough thereafter in Rich- 
mond to prosecute the investigation of this matter to a 
close, but I have never doubted that the information given 
me by Mr. Fowle and Colonel Or was in all respects cor- 
rect. If so, what are men to think of Mr. Davis' boasted 
disinterestedness and integrity, and of those of his Cabinet 
counselors ? 

About twelve months before the fall of Richmond Con- 
gress passed a bill raising each of the adjutants in attend- 
ance upon major generals in service to the dignity of 
major. The subject had 'been much considered and most 
deliberately acted on. 80 soon as Congress adjourned Mr. 
Davis, imitating the well-known example of James II of 
England, suspended the operation of the law, thus com- 
mitting precisely such an act of tyrannic usurpation as 
cost the King of England referred to the loss of his throne. 
There has never been a time when such a proceeding as 
this would not have caused the immediate impeachment 
of a President of the United States. What made the 
conduct of Mr. Davis in regard to this matter still more 
disgusting was the fact that, Sunday after Sunday, a son 
of our august Confederate Imperator, not above fourteen 
years of age, appeared in Mr. Davis' pew at church, by 
the paternal side, dressed up in a Confederate major's uni- 
form, without his ever having seen a single day or hour 
of military service in his life. 

There has been much rather silly talk at one time in 
this country on the subject of nepotism. I assert that the 
grossest and most shameless acts of nepotism that the world 
has ever seen were constantly occurring during the short 
and stormy reign of Jefferson the First in Richmond. I do 
not think that there was a single male relative, either of 
Mr. Davis or his wife, to be found in any part of the Con- 
federate States, that was not given official advancement 
of some kind or other, and in some instances under cir- 



394 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

cumstances of the grossest indelicacy and injustice. But 
this theme is really too nauseating to he dwelt upon. 

It was formally proposed during the first year of the 
war that the cotton of the Confederate States in private 
ownership should be bought by the Government. Every 
bale of it was then purchasable at ten or twelve cents per 
pound, payable in Confederate paper. This proposition 
was scoffingly rejected by Mr. Davis and that profound 
fiscal economist, Memminger, his Secretary of the Treas- 
ury, on the ridiculous and untenable ground that this sort 
of traffic would transform the awful government at Rich- 
mond into a wretched broker's office. At the end of about 
two years these gentlemen came to their senses on this 
all-important subject, and commenced buying cotton all 
over the land, for which they had to pay, at least, a dol- 
lar a pound. Thereby hangs a tale of enormous illicit 
profits, which the public is not likely to hear told very 
shortly. 

The insane project of burning all the cotton of the 
South, in order to keep it out of the hands of the enemy, 
is understood to have originated in Mr. Davis' own teem- 
ing cranium. It is a little remarkable, though, that while 
so many suffered so ruinously by the destruction of their 
cotton in this way, the crops of Mr. Jefferson Davis and 
of his brother Joseph are understood, in some mysterious 
way, to have escaped the devouring flames. 

I have heretofore brought to notice the fact that large 
proceeds arising from the sales of the cotton of the Con- 
federate Government were understood to be in the city of 
Liverpool when the war was brought to an end. I hope 
that Mr. Davis and the historiographer, whoever he may 
be, that had the honor to be seleeted the other day to 
compose the first truthful and impartial history of the 
war "from Southern material,'' will condescend to give to 
the world some explanation of what has become of this 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 395 

large amount of money, and also what became of the 
$200,000 in gold which I assert, and can prove, to have 
been taken across the ocean from Canada after the end of 
the war by Jacob Thompson, Mr. Davis' once-accredited 
agent. Did Mr. Thompson keep the whole of this money, 
or did the yet " unreconstructed " ex-Emperor of the South 
get his share? And is it in this way that we arc to ac- 
count for the mysterious suspension of that generous pro- 
ject set on foot in the city of Richmond a few years ago 
for raising a large sum of money from the distressed and 
ruined people of the South for the purpose of rewarding 
Mr. Davis for his Washington-like services to a generous- 
minded but, I fear, a too easily deluded people? 

Perhaps the most cruel and atrocious conduct perpe- 
trated by any of President Davis' military servitors during 
the war was that practiced by his especial favorite, General 
Hindman, in the State of Arkansas. I have formerly as- 
serted, and my assertion has never yet been denied, nor can 
it be, that "this person, as his own formal report to the War 
Department evidenced, finding, as he said, that the very 
comprehensive provisions of the conscription law were 
not (juite comprehensive enough to suit his purposes, de- 
liberately amplified them by proclamation ; declared mar- 
tial law throughout Arkansas and the northern portion 
of Texas, and demanded the services of all whom he had 
thus lawlessly embraced in his wide-sweeping conscription 
list. All who refused to obey his mandate, as he in 
terms confesses, were apprehended, subjected to trial by 
a military court, appointed by Hindman himself; and 
when convicted, as a good many of them were, of an 
offense which he himself unblushingly acknowledges in 
this same official report was wholly unknown to the law 
of the land, he had them all executed ; and going even 
beyond the example of the infernal Jeffreys himself in 
barbarity, he (as he also most ostentatiously declares, in 



396 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

the same report) took care to be personally present, that 
he might witness the dying agonies of his unfortunate 
victims. This man seized upon all the cotton and other 
property for which he had use, (as he boldly avows,) burned 
some, retained some, and appropriated a third portion to 
such purposes as he pleased. His cruelties were so enor- 
mous in Arkansas that it became unsafe that he should 
remain there longer, when he was brought across the 
Mississippi river under order of the Confederate War De- 
partment, made president of a court of inquiry for the 
trial of General Lovell, and, after having made such a 
report as was deemed to be necessary to the shielding of 
certain officials in Richmond from blame in connection 
with the capture of ^New Orleans, was immediately there- 
after put in command of one of the largest divisions in 
the army of Tennessee, where he remained snug and com- 
fortable until, running into collision with a more poten 
tial presidential favorite, the well-beloved Bragg, he was 
quietly relieved from command. I exposed all the enor- 
mity of this fiend in human form in open session of the 
Confederate Congress on more than one occasion, and took 
pains to have my exposition put in print, and yet I could 
not persuade Mr. Davis or Air. Seddon to take the slightest 
notice of these outrageous enormities. 

This is the proper place to give some special attention 
to this same General Bragg. This military commander 
first set the example of proclaiming martial law, which 
he did repeatedly and upon the most flimsy pretexts. I 
assert what I know to be true, and what I charged to be 
true on more than one occasion, and what I stand now 
fully prepared to establish on proof, that General Bragg 
did deliberately put to death on repeated occasions, with- 
out a shadow even of Confederate legal authority, as meri- 
torious soldiers as he had under his command, and for one 
of the most revolting instances of this kind which oc- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. ,597 

curred I can confidently rely upon the authority of Gen- 
eral Buckner, from whose own lips I learned the particu- 
lars, lie evinced on all occasions while he commanded the 
army of Tennessee an utter disregard of all the established 
principles of constitutional freedom, committed such ex- 
cesses as a Sylla or a Marius would almost have recoiled 
from, and yet, in spite of all that could be done, his re- 
moval from command could not be effected until the Con- 
federate cause had become well-nigh hopeless. On one oc- 
casion, in company with a majority of the Tennessee Sen- 
ators and Representatives, I joined in demanding the re- 
moval of General Bragg, and the substitution in his place 
of General Joseph E.Johnston. A written communication 
had been addressed to the Confederate President request- 
ing an interview with him, and asking that it might be a 
private one. Mr. Davis had consented to see us at a par- 
ticular hour at his office. We were received with suffi- 
cient politeness, but we presently perceived that Mr. Hun- 
ter, of Virginia, and Mr. Barnwell, of South Carolina, 
were also present. I addressed these gentlemen civilly, 
and suggested to them that as they seemed to have pre- 
cedence over us we would withdraw until their particular 
business should be dispatched. To this they answered : 
" No, it is unnecessary," and took their seats, between a 
large table and the wall, near enough to hear all that 
might go on. Our interview was a very brief one. Mr. 
Davis gave us to understand that the change which we 
demanded should be made, and he even went so far as to 
present to our view a book purporting to contain a copy 
of the telegrams he had sent off that day, from which it 
appeared that he had already issued the order for which 
we asked. This, by-the-by, was not done ; and from sub- 
sequent facts I am satisfied that he had never entertained 
the least thought of parting with Bragg at all. I recol- 
lect that Major Gustavus Henry, one of the Tennessee 



398 CASKET or REMINISCENCES. 

Senators, inquired of me, as we left the room, if I thought 
Mr. Hunter and Mr. Barnwell had been requested by Mr. 
Davis to remain in order to bear witness thereafter to 
what might occur. To this I answered that I could not 
undertake to decide so nice a point as this, but I con- 
sidered that we had all been treated most disrespectfully, 
and that it was the last official visit I should ever pay to 
Mr. Davis. This surely needs no comment. 

And now, with such facts as these staring us in the 
face, will any portion of our Southern people desire the 
restoration of Mr. Davis' tyrannic rule ? Does any one 
wish to see renewed in any part of the laud the reign of 
secession? Is it indeed true that any portion of the fair 
ladies of the South yet sympathize with this unscrupulous 
and daring adventurer? Do not all my long-suffering 
countrymen and countrywomen of the South at last see 
the necessity of their becoming at once cordially recon- 
ciled to the Government of their fathers ? Will they not 
afford to that paternal Government a fair opportunity of 
exercising that magnanimity which belongs to its charac- 
ter? Or will they still maniacally cling to the accursed 
" flesh-pots of Egypt ?" 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 399 



REMINISCENCE No. XXXVI. 

UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE AND UNIVERSAL AMNESTY — HON. WIL- 
LIAM M. STEWART ANDREW JOHNSON GOVERNOR SHARKEY 

— ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. 

When the recent four years' civil war was brought to 
a close one fact was exceedingly obvious to all mankind — 
African slavery in North America was dead, dead, dead, 
beyond all possibility of being resuscitated in all time to 
come! This overthrow of a system of unmixed evil had 
been long before and often thundered into the ears of dull- 
sighted and bigoted secession leaders by such men as Clay 
and Webster as the certain and inevitable result of the 
surrender of those constitutional guarantees which had 
alone and almost for a century protected slavery against 
the indignant hostility of an uprisen world. So far, in- 
deed, were such one-idea men as John C. Calhoun, Jeff 
Davis, et /'</ omne genus, from comprehending this,. that 
they verily believed, and often ostentatiously announced 
in Congress and elsewhere, that the system of labor then 
existing in the South would never find itself established 
upon solid and irremovable foundations until a constitu- 
tion for a separate Southern republic should be formed in 
which slavery would be made the chief and predominat- 
ing ingredient. This constitution, as I have more than 
once mentioned, Mr. Calhoun professed to have already 
drawn up, and was ready to supervise its being put in 
happy and beneficent operation. But so far, in truth, was 
slavery from being strengthened and solidified by the war, 
projected and carried on in the begining for its extension 
and perpetuation, that even Mr. Davis was driven, during 



400 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

the last year of that war, to recommend throwing all the 
able-bodied sons of Africa into the Confederate armies for 
the maintenance of those chains which four millions of 
men, women, and children were then wearing — on condi- 
tion, though, that the happy few who were to be suddenly 
transformed into soldiers should be allowed to win their 
own emancipation by lighting for the permanent subju- 
gation of all who should not take up arms. These notions 
seem all now to be so surpassingly stupid and impracti- 
cable that even those of us who had ocular and auricular 
evidence of the facts just stated must almost feel incredu- 
lous of what we distinctly recollect to be true. 

When slavery was at last seen by all to be "in the tomb 
of the Capulets," it became necessary to determine with- 
out delay what should become of those who had been just 
redeemed from bondage. A far-sighted sagacity would 
long before have provided for this state of things by a 
system of gradual emancipation, accompanied by a suitable 
and well-digested system of general education. To have 
among us four millions of people nominally five, but in 
all the higher advantages of a state of freedom on an equal- 
ity with the members of the brute creation, was mani- 
festly to ordain the ultimate degradation and ruin of our 
whole forty millions of citizens. The moral and intel- 
lectual culture of the race so long held in subjection had 
become a great national necessity, perhaps even more im- 
portant to the white race themselves than to those among 
whom the seeds of knowledge and refinement had now to 
be sown. If we desired to have social tranquillity, peace- 
able and friendly neighbors and fellow-Christians, instead 
of living in a state of perpetual proximity to ignorance 
and barbarism, to want and degraded profligacy — always 
on the increase — we had to provide for the emancipation 
of our former bondmen and bondwomen from a condition 
of mental and spiritual slavery far more torturing than 



(JASKEt OF REMINISCENCES. 401 

mere physical enthrallment. We had to do more. The 
necessity had come upon us of the South, springing from 
the eternal principles of justice, as well as a sound, states- 
manlike policy, of doing all this ourselves for the safety 
and future advancement of a long-oppressed and suffering 
race, in order to conciliate them toward their former mas- 
ters and mistresses, and keep these helpless ones out of 
the hands of a body of selfish and contriving managers 
with whom they were even then in daily and hourly con- 
tact, and who, if allowed to do so, would infallibly use 
them for their own selfish purposes, and set them perma- 
nently against those to whose control they had so long, 
under far different circumstances, quietly and unmurmur- 
ingly submitted. Carpet-bagism then was not an actual 
entity, but men of clear insight distinctly saw that there 
was, even at that time, a possibility of its future exist- 
ence with all the unnamable horrors that wait thereupon. 
The grave question was now immediately to arise : Are 
Southern men sufficiently relieved from the prejudices be- 
longing to a system which has now forever passed away 
calmly and impartially to consider these matters, and cor- 
dially and without reserve to accept all the legitimate 
results of the war ? There was one great difficulty in the 
way of their coming to sound conclusions concerning this 
momentous matter. It is time that the truth should be 
spoken boldly. There was an ancient party organization 
in the States of the North yet exhibiting some feeble 
signs of vitality, which Mr. Jefferson and others had 
always claimed to be the "natural ally of the South," and 
which in former days had rendered good service as the 
upholder of what were called Democratic principles, and 
as the supporter of that healthful spirit of progress then 
associated with the Democratic name and what yet re- 
mained of its primeval creed. Many of the leaders of this 
party in the North, it was known, had deeply sympa- 
26 R 



402 CASKET OE REMINISCENCES. 

tbi zed with the South in the struggle for independence 
which had just terminated. Some had even generously 
rushed to the sunny plains of the South, and fought there 
against the Union soldiers. This party had generally 
manifested its opposition to Mr. Lincoln's proclamation 
decreeing universal freedom. Though deeply discredited 
and demoralized, that party, then plainly degenerated 
into a mere spoils-loving faction, was yet unwilling to 
die. The newspapers of that party everywhere were un- 
willing to give up an organization which had in times 
past proved so profitable to them, and which, could it be 
thoroughly redintegrated, would, as they hoped, be yet 
equally prolific of the advantages of every kind which 
had been formerly enjoyed. Local demagogues, too, every- 
where, depending alone upon part} T organization and a 
vicious system of party nomination for prospective power 
and dignity, still held on with tenacious grip to the rotten 
and shattered hull of the besmirched and shivered craft 
in which they had so long been navigating. With what 
face could such Democrats as I have been describing ask 
for admission into the Republican party of that time and 
become the open supporters of the principles of progress to 
which the war and its successful administration had given 
rise ? 

Such was the precise state of things when that wise and 
pure-minded patriot, Llorace Greeley, startled the whole 
country by the enunciation of the sublime and all-compre- 
hending proposition — universal suffrage, coupled with uni- 
versal amnesty. Light seemed suddenly to break in upon 
the public mind, and to scatter in an instant the clouds 
of passion and prejudice which had so long enveloped it. 
Here was the restoration of that civic equality existing 
in the days of our fathers tendered to all the unhappy 
victims of the war; and that civic equality also which 
had been solemnly pledged in the season of war by the 



CASKET? OF ftEMlttlSCENCES. 40S 

Government itself to those from whose hands the shackles 
of serfdom had just been broken. The equity of this du- 
plex proposition was just as obvious as was its expediency. 
But these words of wisdom and of true philanthropy 
spoken by the lamented Greeley had come first from the 
lips of a Republican leader. Other Republican leaders — 
Gerrit Smith ; the then Governor of Massachusetts ; and 
others who might be mentioned — had cordially welcomed 
Mr. Greeley's soul-cheering enunciation, and nothing 
could be plainer than that if universal amnesty and uni- 
versal suffrage should, under such circumstances, be ac- 
corded by the North and accepted by the South, and thus 
the great work of national pacification be seen to go on 
under Republican auspices, there was an end forever of 
Democratic dignity and of Democratic influence, and a 
" new era of good feeling " and of general amity and 
brotherhood would be ushered in, to last for a few years 
at least; during which party strife and rancor would 
cease to inflame and irritate the whole popular mind of 
America. 

It was in the spring of 1866 that I chanced to visit 
Washington city. Congress was in session, and the topics 
adverted to above were undergoing everywhere a free and 
animated discussion. One morning, on calling at the room 
of Mr. Stewart, one of the Senators from Nevada, he and 
I fell into conversation on this subject. I had several 
months before published a letter in the New York Tribune 
urging warmly upon the people of the South their prompt 
and cordial accession to Mr. Greeley's proposition. Sev- 
eral newspapers in that region of a decidedly conservative 
cast had republished my letter and given to it their ap- 
proval. The Bourbon-Democratic presses of the South 
were as yet holding back, waiting for advice from the 
accredited organs of the Democratic party in New York 
and elsewhere before they ventured to say pro or con in 



404 dAstcET of Reminiscences. 

regard to a measure which they feared might disrupt the 
organization of that party which was so much dearer to 
them than their bleeding and distressed country. 

Mr. Stewart asked me if I thought the States and peo- 
ple of the South would willingly accept the conditions of 
settlement tendered by Mr. Greeley. I answered that I 
was satisfied they ought to do so ; that universal amnesty, 
coupled with universal suffrage, was all they were entitled 
to demand, and more than I had hoped for a month or 
two before. But I promptly expressed my opinion that 
party thraldom in the South was then so complete, and 
there was so much deference paid there to narrow-minded 
and ignorant partisan scribblers, and to the commands of 
selfish and unscrupulous party-managers, that unless the 
Democratic press in the North could be in some way lib- 
eralized and rendered more national and patriotic in its 
tone, it was to be feared that for the present, at least, my 
unhappy fellow-countrymen of the South would regard 
negro suffrage as a thing to which they ought never to 
think of submitting. I suo*o;ested, further, that there 

O OS 7 7 

might be some difficulty on this point yet in the mind of 
President Johnson, who was evidently bent on carrying 
into operation, and by any means which he might find 
necessary to that end, his own peculiar policy of recon- 
struction, and I reminded Mr. Stewart also of the remark- 
able conversation which had occurred some time before 
between President Johnson and Frederick Douglass, in 
which the former had very scornfully declared that what 
he had always meant by making the slave free was the 
making him. free to labor — urging at the same time that, 
should civil equality be given to the blacks, it would, as 
he believed, initiate a war of races — a shallow and unau- 
thorized notion, altogether repugnant to the teachings of 
history. Mr. Stewart, said that he had some hope that, 
if proper efforts were made, President Johnson could be 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. t05 

induced to co-operate cordially in the new movement, 
and told me that if I would remain in Washington one 
day more he would introduce a resolution on this subject 
in the Senate. He further told me he had reason to 
believe that Mr. Sumner would unite with him in support 
of such a resolution iis that above alluded to, and that a 
telegram had been just received from the Governor of 
Massachusetts which committed that worthy and influ- 
ential personage most fully in regard to this grave and 
interesting matter. 

All this was highly encouraging to me, and I told Mr. 
Stewart that if he would draw up and offer his resolution 
that very day, I would see certain Senators, recently 
elected in the South, who were at that moment in Wash- 
ington with a hope of being admitted in a day or two 
to their seats, but who thus far had not been permitted 
to qualify ; naming of these gentlemen, particularly, 
Messrs. Stephens, Graham, and Sharkey ; all of whom I 
told Mr. Stewart I thought would be willing to join in an 
assurance that his resolution, if adopted in Congress, 
would prove ultimately satisfactory to the people of their 
respective States. Mr. Stewart sat down to draft his res- 
olution, and I went at once to call on Mr. Stephens and 
Judge Sharkey, both of whom I saw ; and I regretted to 
And that Governor Graham, of North Carolina, had left 
town. J udge Sharkey told me at once that he warmly 
approved of what I was doing, and that if, on calling to 
see President Johnson and conversing with him, he should 
find things propitious in that quarter, he would at once 
declare, in a public and formal manner, his sanction of 
Mr. Stewart's resolution, and give it his hearty support, 
also, after his return to Mississippi. Judge Sharkey went 
at once to the White House, had an interview with 
President Johnson, and returned to the hotel, where I 
was impatiently awaiting his arrival. He told me that 



406 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

he deeply regretted to find Mr. Johnson utterly opposed 
to endowing the negro with the right of suffrage, he in- 
sisting that it would inevitably result in a war of races, 
and added that he felt bound to adhere to Mr. Johnson, 
even in opposition to his own convictions, inasmuch as he 
had, as he thought, greatly risked himself for the relief of 
the South in her present suffering condition. I was exceed- 
ingly distressed to learn these facts, and I saw very plainly 
that there was not much probability of Mr. Stewart's 
pacificatory resolution being adopted while President 
Johnson continued to occupy his present attitude. Judge 
Sharkey several years after visited my own residence in 
Nashville , and took occasion to condemn President John- 
son very strongly on account of the absurd and unaccom- 
modating spirit displaj^ed by him on that occasion, which 
he tfoen agreed with me had been deeply prejudicial to 
the South and to the whole country. 

My interview with Mr. Stephens was a very extraordi- 
nary one indeed. I placed before him the substance of 
the resolution which Mr. Stewart was about to offer. He 
told me frankly that he did not approve it ; that he could 
never give his assent to negro suffrage; and he even called 
in question the validity of Mr. Lincoln's proclamation of 
freedom. I urged upon him the proposition that the 
measure of emancipation had been adopted as a war meas- 
ure, and in that point of view I thought should be held 
valid. This he very politely but very vehemently denied, 
and I soon after left his lodgings fully persuaded that 
neither he nor his brother Senators from the South who 
had been knocking for admission at the doors of the 
Senate would ever be admitted until Congress should 
have guaranteed, in some effectual mode, the future safety 
and happiness of those whom they had so solemnly and 
repeatedly encouraged to look to them for protection and 
supjiort. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 407 

' The conduct of President Johnson in this instance was 
the more remarkable because he had a year before sent a 
telegram to Judge Sharkey, when this gentleman was 
acting in the capacity of Provisional Governor of Missis- 
sippi, in which he recommended, in the most emphatic 
manner, that the organic convention of that State should, 
in the new constitution which that body was about to 
frame, insert a clause providing for universal anmesty 
and universal suffrage, basing the latter, though, upon 
the standard of intelligence. " In this way," said this 
notable telegram, a you will take the wind out of the 
sails of your adversaries." 

Mr. Stewart brought forward his resolution in the 
Senate, as he had agreed to do, and had the satisfaction, 
in a day or two, of finding himself most unkindly attacked 
by the editors of the New York World, who denounced 
the proposition offered by him as unjust and illiberal to- 
ward the South, and characterized Mr. Stewart himself 
as a bitter Radical on account of his having thus presumed 
to bring it forward. 

Both the great political parties lately contending for 
ascendency in the Presidential election placed themselves 
upon the platform of universal amnesty and universal 
suffrage ; the whole South acquiesced therein, and no one 
now deems it safe or politic to deny the civil equality 
of the races. And yet still is there some secret dissatis- 
faction fermenting in a few bosoms in regard to this once 
painfully disputed point ; and it is evident, from the 
movements of certain political Bourbonites of the Demo- 
cratic party (so called) in several of the populous States 
of the West, that if a particular class of antediluvian 
politicians, who are neither capable of learning anything 
new nor of forgetting anything old, are allowed to have 
their own way about this matter, they will yet throw us 
back at least six years in the history of the past ; and 



408 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

the men of progress will have to tight over again once 
more the great battle of principle which has so often already 
been fought and won. 

How long will it be before our countrymen will every- 
where learn that party does not mean country, and that a 
man may be a most spry and dextrous party leader with- 
out the smallest claim to be recognized as an enlightened 
and incorruptible patriot ? How long shall men of sound 
sense and extended experience in the States of the South 
continue to look with something of an idolatrous rever- 
ence to the teachings of distant editors, who are directly 
interested in deceiving them, and whose innumerable 
blunders and inconsistencies have long since deprived them 
of all just claim to respect and consideration ? How long- 
will it continue to be the case that men of ability, of up- 
rightness, and of known patriotism shall be distrusted 
and hated because of the falsehood and deceptious plausi- 
bility of those who smile but to betray, and who make 
professions of undying friendship only the more effec- 
tually to delude and injure those who are silly enough to 
seek their counsels and to give heed to their deceitful 
admonitions? 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 409 



REMINISCENCE No. XXXVII. 

CHIEF JUSTICE CHASE — JUSTICE SWAYNE. 

A few days since, after having taken dinner at the 
house of a hospitable and valued friend, who dwells amid 
the cool and shadj r heights of Georgetown, I was easily 
persuaded to stroll during the cool and quiet hours of a 
Saturday afternoon through the grounds of the beauti- 
ful cemetery in that vicinage, where wealth and a deli- 
cate and refined taste have done so much to soften the in- 
evitable horrors, of death, and to impart needed consola- 
tion to the hearts of bereaved friends and relatives. I 
soon found myself standing in view of the freshly-made 
grave of one whom I had long and familiarly known in 
life, and between whom and myself the most unvarying 
harmony and friendship had ever subsisted, despite certain 
differences of opinion betwixt us upon questions once 
deemed of essential and vital import. While I was thus 
surveying the last resting-place of a man whose career 
had been so eminently marked with ability and virtue, 
and saw the flowers with which the hand of affection had 
so profusely bestrewn the earth which covered the mortal 
remains of Salmon P. Chase, now fast withering under 
the influence of a warm summer's sun, I could not but 
feel touchingly impressed with the vain and transitory 
character of all sublunary grandeur, and I inwardly re- 
peated the memorable words of Mr. Burke: " What shad- 
ows we are, and what shadows we pursue ! " 

It will appear, I am sure, surprising to none that, after 
leaving this sequestered and suggestive scene and return- 
ing to my own lonely lodgings, my mind fell into a train 



410 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

of rumination, and became conscious of reminiscences 
which sought expression in such language as that which 
follows ; in which will be found allusions to past occur- 
rences, not altogether unmingled with speculations as to 
what may perchance take place hereafter, such as I hope 
may not prove altogether unentertaining to such as may 
honor these humble lucubrations with a cursory perusal. 
All will admit that the office of Chief Justice of the 
Supreme Court of the United States is one of the greatest 
dignity and importance, and that the manifold and ar- 
duous duties connected therewith demand for their suc- 
cessful performance powers of intellect and traits of char- 
acter rarely found united in any one individual. Surely 
no man could be judged worthy to occupy this exalted 
position who is not possessed of various and extended 
learning; — .who is not a vigorous and correct thinker — 
who is not as free as human nature can be expected to 
be from the domination of prejudice and passion of every 
kind — who is not a man of spotless and unquestioned 
integrity — whose habits of life are not marked with in- 
dustry, sobriety, and a profound sense of responsibility to 
the Constitution and the laws, and to the people, for the 
promotion of whose welfare and happiness this Constitu- 
tion and these laws have been ordained and established. 
Far be it from me to suggest that no man should be ele- 
vated to the office of Chief Justice of the United States 
who has never taken part in the scenes of political con. 
troversy, or whose opinions in regard to the gravest con- 
stitutional questions are wholly unknown. Under our 
system of government, it would be egregiously absurd to 
suppose that any individual will ever be found who shall 
at the same time have given satisfactory evidence of su- 
perior ability, and yet have avoided altogether the dis- 
cussion of those questions which involve the prosperity 
and safety of the wdiole Republic. I am, moreover, free 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 411 

to say that, in my opinion, any President of the United 
States would be justly held amenable to censure who 
should call to the office of Chief Justice a man whose con- 
stitutional opinions were not fully known to him ; and I 
should vehemently doubt the sincerity of any Chief Mag- 
istrate who should nominate any man to a seat upon the 
Supreme Bench of the Union whose views of constitu- 
tional law were not in unison with those openly avowed 
by himself. Nobody now blames the elder Adams for 
calling John Marshall to preside over the deliberations 
of the highest judicial tribunal existing under Federal 
authority ; nor is Jackson at this time complained of for 
nominating for the office of Chief Justice the lamented 
Roger B. Taney ; and yet were both of these eminent per- 
sonages zealous, outspoken, and influential partisan lead- 
ers anterior to their elevation to the Bench. 

There is one proposition, the correctness of which I feel 
certain that no reasonable man will ever be heard to dis- 
pute, which is, that any given President is bound to do 
all in his power to find out the most suitable person in 
all respects to receive this high honor at his hands ; and 
that when he shall have deliberately resolved to select 
such an individual for the place of Chief Justice, he is 
equally bound to send in his nomination to the Senate 
without the smallest regard to the illiberal scoffing or 
ridicule, either of those politically opposed to him, or to 
the protestations of selfish and intriguing factionists of 
his own particular party. 

With these preliminary suggestions I will now proceed 
to the principal task which lies before me. 

It was my fortune to come into social life in the bosom 
of a singularly virtuous and well-ordered community, and 
to have my first lessons of experience amid many of those 
who had been the immediate friends and neighbors of the 
venerated Washington and his illustrious compeers of 



412 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

Revolutionary renown. The first American statesman 
who became familiarly known to me in early life was 
Chief Justice John Marshall, whose gravely benignant 
aspect, and whose simple and unaffected manners, are yet 
vividly pictured on my memory. Whilst a student of 
law in the well-known town of Warrenton, distant only 
about fifty miles from the city in which I write, I saw this 
remarkable man repeatedly. For many years of his event- 
ful and most useful life he was accustomed to pay an an- 
nual visit to his native county of Fauquier, where he was 
the owner of a considerable landed estate, and where he 
had a numerous body of kinsmen and friends, in whose 
society he liked to unbend himself and freshen his re- 
membrance of years gone by. Often do I recreate my 
own fancy by bringing this truly great and good man be- 
fore my mental vision just as he was when I gazed upon 
him fifty years ago placidly loitering along the streets of 
our county town, on court days, exchanging kindly 
greetings with the friends of his youth of all classes, hear- 
ing from their own lips all of good or of evil which might 
perchance have befallen either themselves or their fami 
lies since he had last encountered them, and seeming to 
take a real and affectionate interest in everything con- 
nected with their welfare and happiness. Well do Ire 
member that this gratifying spectacle was sometimes sur- 
veyed by one who stood to me ,at the time in relations of 
tender and confidential companionship ; whose extraordi- 
nary intellectual promise, associated with all the moral 
graces that can' adorn young, energetic manhood, had al- 
ready called forth the most favorable prognostics of his 
future fame and usefulness from a host of 'loving and ad- 
miring friends ; prognostics which have been since most 
abundantly realized : for that friend of my early years 
has, in the half century that has rolled away since he and 
I were fellow-students in our native State and poring 



CASKF/f OF REMlttlSCENCiEg. 413 

over together the pages of Coke and Blackstone, has ac- 
quired a high reputation, both as a jurist and advocate, 
in one of the largest and most populous States of the 
Union ; has accumulated a large estate chiefly by his la- 
bors as a barrister, and is now honorably occupying a seat 
upon the Bench of that high tribunal of which John 
Marshall was himself the chief ornament, when he and I, 
full fifty years ago, were surveying with an affectionate 
admiration — not unmixed perchance with a certain sense 
of awe — the serene glories which encircled this illustri. 
ous personage. Will that friend of my youth forgive me 
if I remind him here of certain mystic colloquies held 
between two students of law at a period in the dim past, 
now so remote, touching the expediency of selecting be- 
times some well-known model of intellectual excellence for 
imitation, in order to keep alive our hopes and preserve 
our energies in full vigor until those lofty heights of re- 
nown should be at last reached to which a generous and 
all-potential ambition was even then prompting us both 
to aspire ? Will he forgive me if I take a still greater 
liberty, and suggest that even at the time to which I have 
alluded, whilst contemplating the grave splendors associ- 
ated with the name of Marshall, it was not in his own 
noble nature to remain altogether unconscious of some 
such inspiring glow of magnanimous rivalry as once 
warmed the bosom of the youthful Themistocles, and 
which impelled him to heave a sigh over the hard-earned 
V -lories of the great Miltiades? 

It will be, at least, regarded by -some as a remarkable 
fact, that when, some eighty years ago, at a time when 
J udge Taney's early demise or resignation was confidently 
expected in a few days to occur, the office of Chief Jus- 
tice, in the event of a vacancy arising as described, was 
tendered by Mr. Lincoln to Judge Swayne ; so that if he 
is not now occupying this high place, it is not because 



414 Casket of reminiscences. 

the lamented Lincoln did not deem him worthy to hold 
it. Had President Lincoln's original intentions touching 
this matter been carried into effect, then, within (compar- 
atively speaking) a veiw limited period of time, the Amer 
ican people would have seen two Chief Justices of the Su- 
preme Court of the Union selected from the same county in the 
bosom of the Ancient Dominion ! 

A short statement of facts will render this matter a 
little plainer. President Lincoln did formally tender the 
place of Chief Justice to Mr. Justice Swayne. He, as 
formally, did accept the proffered honor. But this chanced 
to take place in the year 1864, when a dire civil war was 
yet raging, and when a long protraction of hostilities was 
to be apprehended if perfect harmony and concord should 
not be preserved in the non-seceding States of the Union. 
Chief Justice Chase had been spoken of very freely as a 
probable candidate for the Presidency in opposition to 
Mr. Lincoln, whose re-election was by many deemed 
essential to the ultimate success of the Union cause. Now, 
though at the time of Judge Taney's actual decease Mr. 
Lincoln had been nominated, yet his name continued to 
be mentioned freely in connection with the Presidency, 
and it was by many deemed possible that Mr. Chase might 
be eventually persuaded to run as an independent candi- 
date. Whether there was any reason to expect that he 
would thus yield to the outspoken wishes of some of his 
political and personal friends I have no adequate means 
of deciding. But the following facts are certain : Patriots 
became everywhere anxious to prevent any conflict in the 
bosom of the Republican party, which, it was feared, 
might bring about the election of General McClellan. 
Under these circumstances a number of enlightened and 
well-intentioned citizens favorable to the election of Mr. 
Chase called upon Mr. Lincoln, and urged him to consent 
to the elevation of this gentleman to the position of Chief 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 415 

Justice ; in consideration of which they proffered to 
withdraw him altogether from the field of contest. 
This was a sore trial to President Lincoln. He did not 
at all doubt the competency of Mr. Chase, and he was a 
warm admirer of his character and abilities. But he had 
already tendered the Chief Justiceship to his friend, Judge 
Swayne. Then it was that the magnanimity and elevated 
disinterestedness of Justice Swayne were made nobly 
manifest. When President Lincoln approached him on 
the subject in the most delicate and decorous manner, and 
informed him of the perplexing dilemma in which he 
had become involved, he did not hesitate one instant to 
release his loved and honored friend from the pledge which 
he had voluntarily given him; and he cheerfully con- 
sented to sacrifice his own claims to official promotion 
upon the altar of his country's happiness. 

There is another curious fact which I deem it proper 
to relate, an account of which I gave in a volume pub- 
lished by me six years ago. Judge Chase is known to 
have been for many years a Democrat in principle. He 
was from the days of early manhood a zealous and fear- 
less opponent of domestic slavery, and had often signal- 
ized his devotion to principle by strenuous opposition as 
an advocate to what was called the fugitive slave law. He 
was no secessionist, in the ordinary sense of that term, but 
he was conscientiously regardful of what he recognized as 
the reserved rigbts of the States, and he was clearly of 
opinion that the fugitive slave law was a serious infrac- 
tion of these rights. When he was acting in the office 
of Governor of Ohio he resolved to briiiff this matter to 
a test in the courts of the State. The manner in which 
the question as to the validity of the law was raised is 
familiar to all. When the matter was under examination 
in the Supreme Court of Ohio there were three judges 
there presiding. One of these was known to regard the 



416 CASKET OF HEMlNlSCE&CES. 

law as constitutional ; another was ready to express an 
opposite opinion ; whilst the third, Judge Swan, was sup- 
posed not to have made up his mind upon the subject. 
President Buchanan had employed Judge Swayne, then a 
practicing lawyer in Columbus, to make an argument in 
support of the right of the Federal Government to enforce 
the fugitive slave law upon the soil of Ohio. It was per- 
fectly well known that if the State Supreme Court should 
decide against the validity of the law, and Mr. Buchanan 
should still persist in enforcing it, the Governor of the 
State would feel it to be his duty to resist the attempt in 
arms; and that he had accordingly made all necessary ar- 
rangements to carry his views into effect. It was evident, 
therefore, that it depended essentially upon the action of 
-Judge Swan whether domestic peace should be maintained 
or a bloody civil war be initiated. I arrived in Columbus 
on the very day that this controversy was brought to a 
conclusion, and immediately on reaching the hotel where 
I put up, I heard that Judge Swayne had made the ablest 
speech ot his life in support of the law, and that the Su- 
preme Court had decided the question at issue in favor of 
the United States. Thus was civil war prevented. How 
a conflict between the State of Ohio and the Government 
upon this most appalling question would have resulted it 
is difficult now to say ; but no one can deny that Judge 
Swayne acquired more true glory on this occasion than 
twenty years' service as Chief Justice would be likely to 
procure him. 



GASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 417 



REMWISCEN"CE No. XXXVIII. 

CHTEF JUSTICE CHASE — GOVERNOR BROWNLOW — JEFF DAVIS. 

A very unexpected and exceedingly welcome letter from 
my valued friend, Senator Brownlow, reminds me of a 
duty which I had intended sometime since to perform in 
reference to a distinguished personage, now no longer 
among the living, but for whom I have for many years 
cherished a very elevated esteem and a very cordial friend- 
ship. I allude to the late Chief Justice Chase. I made 
some allusions to this gentleman several days since — 
certainly, as my heart avouches, in a most kindly and 
respectful spirit ; but I soon found myself grossly misun- 
derstood in reference to this matter by some injudicious 
and superserviceable friend of his, by reason of whose ob- 
jurgatory criticisms I was compelled to stand so promptly 
and earnestly upon my own defense that the duty which 
I felt to be owing to the illustrious dead was for the time 
left but in part discharged. Senator Brownlow, having 
seen the somewhat embarrassing predicament in which 
the unknown writer just referred to had placed me, and 
concurring with me in the main, as will be presently seen, 
touching the Chief Justice's character and qualifications, 
as well as in regard to his undeniable preference for the 
performance of official functions other than those of a 
strictly judicial nature, lias been good enough by the last 
mail to send me some evidence illustrative of this delicate 
and interesting point, to the present adduction of which 
I suppose that no dispassionate and sound-thinking friend 
of the late Chief Justice will be at all inclined to object. 

Before presenting Senator Brownlow's letter tome, just 
27 R 



418 CAsREt OE REMINISCENCES, 

received, and that of Judge Chase, which comes inclosed 
therein, I have one or two remarks to make, which I trust 
will not have the ill-fortune to give offense in any quarter. 
I have long thought the office of President of the United 
States one of more dignity than any other whatever, and 
requiring for the proper and creditable discharge of the 
functions annexed thereto the highest powers of intellect 
and the most commanding qualities of soul. To give to a 
country like ours a four years' administration uniformly 
marked with wisdom and virtue equals my highest ideas 
of human glory, and a man like Chief Justice Chase, who 
had every reason to regard himself as capable of occupy- 
ing the Presidential office with credit to himself and with 
honor to the Republic, was more than justified in being 
willing to enter upon a field of duty so much more exten- 
sive and variegated than that which is presented to the 
view of any man whatever whose moral and intellectual 
energies are confined within the, comparatively speaking, 
very limited compass of Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court of the Union. I do not at all doubt that if any 
Chief Justice that the country lias known had at any 
time found the Presidential office clearly within his reach 
he would cheerfully have submitted to his name's being 
used as a candidate for this elevated position. Nor do I 
at all question that if Chief Justice Chase had been elected 
to the Presidency he would have shown himself to be 
possessed of all the capability demanded for the hon- 
orable discharge of the duties annexed thereto, nor that 
he would have been able thereby to establish many addi- 
tional claims to the gratitude and admiration of his coun- 
try men, both now and hereafter. That he was a sound 
and well-informed lawyer no one, so far as I am informed, 
has ever yet denied: that he was honest, diligent, and 
courteous in the discharge of his judicial functions is uni- 
versally admitted ; but I am, and always have been, well 



I AsKET OF REMitilSdfettCES. 419 

satisfied that he would have made a much abler President 
than iud^e; and that if chosen President, with his very 
liberal, progressive, yet conservative views, he would have 
given to the country such an administration as all good and 
patriotic men would have approved and commended. The 
only objection which has ever suggested itself to my mind 
in regard to Judge Chase's complete success in the per- 
formance of the duties which the Chief Executive Magis- 
trate of the Republic is expected to take upon himself 
consists in the fact that he is well known to have had 
rather extreme views in favor of what are called State 
rights and State sovereignty, and I should always have 
feared that he would have been found, in certain exigen- 
cies easy to be imagined, unduly averse to the exercise of 
the coercive powers of the General Government, as Mr. 
Buchanan is known to have been. This same objection, 
I suppose, would always have applied with equal, and per- 
haps with superior, force to the renowned political leader 
of Georgia, Alexander H. Stephens, a man of great virtue 
and of unquestionably high abilities, but whose devotion 
to the dogma of secession, it seems to me, might, if raised 
to the Presidential station, turn out, under certain cir- 
cumstances possible to occur, to be a most prolific source 
of mischief. I will here mention, in passing, a curious 
fact, not, I think, generally known. I heard Stephen A. 
Douglas, in a speech delivered by him in the city of At- 
lanta, Ga., in the year 1860, declare that his friends in 
the Charleston Democratic Convention of that period from 
the State of Illinois had been requested by him, if they 
should find his own nomination for President by that 
body impossible, to do all in their power to secure this 
honor to his friend Mr. Stephens. In thus incidentally 
mentioning this distinguished son of Georgia I seize the 
opportunity of saying that, though I differ from him very 
seriously upon many public questions which might be 



4'20 I AsKET OF REMINISCENCES. 



mentioned, there is no man now in the cotton-growing 
region of the Republic at all equal, in my judgment, to 
him, in strength and clearness of mind, in general mental 
culture, and in capacity for the industrious, earnest, and 
persevering examination of difficult and perplexing public 
questions. His honesty and nobleness of spirit are be- 
yond praise ; no man is more perfectly independent in his 
opinions and sentiments than he is ; no man is more in- 
dined to do full and perfect justice to political adversaries 
of every cast, and despite his abstract devotion to the 
strange and impracticable theory of secession, the Repub- 
lic does not hold within its limits a man of more en- 
larged and disinterested patriotism, and of a more ex- 
panded Christian charitj 7 , than Alexander H. Stephens. 

So much of the letter of Senator Brownlow as does not 
relate to matter strictly private will now be set forth, to- 
gether with the whole letter of Chief Justice Chase to 
him, in disregard of his own request that the portion 
commendatory of himself should be excluded. I take 
this course because (with all due deference) I do not 
think Mr. Brownlow has a right to conceal from the 
world the opinion entertained by such a person as Judge 
('base in relation to the character of a public servant so 
cruelly traduced as I hold my friend Mr. Brownlow for 
man} 7 years past to have been : 

Knoxvikle. August 28, 1S7H. 
Hon. H. S. Foo/r ; 

My Dear GOVERNOR : I am very grateful for the kindly, generous 
words you have written of me in the Chronicle. When, in 1865, I took 
up my residence in Nashville as Governor of this State, you were one 
of the very few men of character and influence who had been identified 
with the defeated Confederacy who did not meet me with denunciation 
of the loyal State government inaugurated. And you were the only 
citizen of Tennessee of prominent position in the government of the 
rebel confederacy in its civil or military departments who had the 
courage openh to accept the results of the war, acknowledge the over- 
throw of the doctrine of secession, and favor the protection, education, 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 421 

and amelioration of the recently emancipated colored population of the 
State, [f other men in Middle and West Tennessee who held seats in 
the rebel Congress, or occupied high military station, had acted in the 
spirit which governed your conduct, instead of meeting the friends of 
the Union in a spirit of hatred and factious opposition, they would not 
have had so much complaint to make against what they termed 
"Brownlow's disfranchising despotism. " 

I am rejoiced to see that yon are handling without gloves that cold- 
blooded conspirator and heartless demagogue, Colonel Jefferson Davis, 
of Memphis. He is, and has always been, one of the worst men in the 
South. When bearing aloft the old flag of the Union you defeated him 
for Governor of Mississippi you gave the only check to the mad ambi- 
tion of this modern Cataline which he ever received, except when 
Wilson's cavalry nabbed him in the petticoats, hoops, and bonnet of 
one of those old women who are to aid him in his new campaign against 
the Union. From defiantly preaching treason in Virginia I believe 
that you can drive him into retirement, and the country will never 
more hear of Jeff., or be menaced with his petticoat brigade. 

l( he had as much self-respect as Judas he would go out and hang 
himself; or if he were capable of realizing his deep disgrace, and the 
contempt in which good men hold him and his puny efforts at a new 
revolt against the Federal Union, he would feel like exclaiming, as did 
a baffled conspirator of ancient times, but a wiser one, 

Let me live unseen, unknown, 

And unlamented let me die ; 
Nor mound, nor monument, nor stone. 

Tell where I lie. 

< >n one condition I would be glad to see old Jeff, continue his speak- 
ing campaign just inaugurated at White Sulphur Springs. I under- 
stand that some of the Rip Van Winkle Democrats, who have not yet 
learned that slavery is abolished and the Democratic party dead, desire 
to rim Colonel Jefferson Davis, of Memphis, for Governor of Tennessee. 
I hope they will do so, and I believe Davis wants to make the race. In 
that event I hope to see you take the field as a candidate. 

For several years I regularly corresponded with the late Chief Justice 
Chase. I was personally much attached to him, had the honor of fre- 
quently being made the recipient of his esteem, and while, in the latter 
years of his life, I was compelled to dissent from some of his views, I 
regarded him as a Wry able and patriotic citizen. 

Since reading your Reminiseences I have accidentally found one of 
several letters he wrote to me on reconstruction. I inclose it, that 
you may copy and publish, if you see fit, that portion referring to the 



422 GASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

Fourteenth Amendment and its adoption by Tennessee. You can 
publish all of it except his allusions to myself, of a personal and com- 
plimentary character. 

******** 

Your friend, 

W. G. BROWNX.OW. 

And here is the interesting letter of Chief Justice Chase 
in totidem verbis : 

Washington,' June 14, I860. 

Dear Governor : This is the first time I have addressed you since 
I was Secretary of the Treasury and you a special agent of the Depart- 
ment. Each of us is in a different position now. You have been made 
Governor of Tennessee, and so called to duties which require the 
clearest of heads and the bravest of hearts, and have been found compe- 
tent and faithful. T have become a judge, in which office I confess 
myself less at home than when a co-operator with the friends of union 
and freedom in the grand cause of human progress. But both as a judge 
and as a citizen I feel a profound interest in the complete restoration 
of the Union and the perfect re-establishuient of civil order. 

There now seems to be a way open. Congress has proposed an 
amendment of the Constitution which, it seems to me, must be, on the 
whole, acceptable to all loyal men, and if it can be adopted at once by 
Tennessee, its adoption by all the States— or at least the necessary 
three-fourths— seems reasonably certain. Besides this, its adoption by 
Tennessee will secure the immediate admission of the Senators and 
Representatives from that State to their seats in Congress, which the 
whole country seem anxiously to desire. I verily think no event could 
be more auspicious to the general welfare of the States than this. 

I dare say this letter is only one of hundreds prompted by the same 
feeling. You will do yourself a great honor, and the country a most 
important service, if you will immediately convoke the Legislature and 
submit the amendment to its action. That action, if it be ratification — 
prompt ratification, so that the Senators and members may take their 
seats before Congress adjourns — will fill the hearts of patriotic men 
throughout the land with joy. 

I shall be glad to have a letter from you, but beg you not to consider 
yourself under any obligation to take the time from other subjects for 
an answer. 

Sincerely your friend. * 

S. P. CHASE. 

His Excellency W, G, Brownia>\\ , 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 423 

It is impossible to read over, ever so cursorily, this judi- 
cious and patriotic letter of Judge Chase without per- 
ceiving the intense solicitude which he felt, at the time of 
the writing thereof, for the earliest possible ratification of 
that most important constitutional amendment, which, 
by giving the fullest protection to the new-found rights of 
the unfortunate and long-oppressed children of Africa, 
opened the way also to the speedy restoration of the 
whites of the South, then but recently emerged from the 
fires of the rebellion, to the sacred and invaluable politi- 
cal rights which they had been so deplorably persuaded to 
repudiate. I have several times had occasion to lament 
that this act of long-deferred justice to those so cruelly 
held in slavery for centuries had not been voluntarily per- 
formed by the ancient white inhabitants of the South 
themselves, without having to be prompted thereto from 
any outside quarter. But as the crust of that obstinate 
bigotry which would still seem to bedarken the intellects 
of some of the Bourbonites of the South had not yet been 
even partially broken, there was no mode left of accom- 
plishing the great object specified except the one carried 
into operation by the enlightened friends of progress and 
civil concord in the various parts of the Republic. And 
now that this good work has been consummated, we may 
well look back to those whose prescience and unwavering 
patriotism accomplished it with gratitude and respect. 
That the part which Judge Chase performed at this fear- 
ful crisis has been generally approved by his countrymen, 
as it certainly will be still more emphatically by posterity, 
no one will be inclined to doubt who considers the fact 
that a very large portion of the Southern Democrats, so- 
called, in 1868 struggled hard to get this eminent states- 
man nominated for the office of President of the United 
States ; and it is really one of the most melancholy in- 
stances of moral dereliction which has ever yet occurred 



424 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

that there are now a very large number of these very per- 
sons, including such men as Jeff. Davis, R. M. T. Hunter, 
et id omne genus, who are apparently desirous of undoing, 
as far as it may be in their power, the goodly work of 
national reconstruction, of which this same fourteenth 
amendment is the chief corner-stone. 

In reference to what my friend Senator Brownlow says 
so generously about his desire that I should take the field 
as a candidate for governor in Tennessee, should Jeff. 
Davis be so stupid as to allow himself to be announced as 
an aspirant to this dignity, I have at this time but little 
to say. I do not think that he is yet quite madman 
enough to attempt such an experiment, though it has been 
said : 

Ferrupit Acheronta Hereuleus labor ; 
Ml mortalibus arduum est; 
Coelum ipsurn petimus stulfcitia, neque 
Per nostrum patimnr scoelus 
Iracunda Jovem ponere fulmina. 

Should I be disappointed, though, in regard to this par- 
ticular, and my old Mississippi rival should hereafter be 
seen attempting to move through Tennessee as a solicitant 
of the suffrages of that high-minded and patriotic people 
as a gubernatorial candidate, I will not say that I may 
not be persuaded to render him all fitting attention ; for 
such a deep and damning disgrace as the election of this 
grand architect of mischief to the high position referred 
to would be indeed recognized as an evil by me and by 
all honest and patriotic men in Tennessee, of a nature pos- 
itively unendurable. Though, in all gravity, I beg leave 
to assure my friend, Senator Brownlow, and all others 
participating in his present expectations as to Mr. Davis 5 
intention to become a gubernatorial candidate, that I 
know him far too well to suppose it even possible that he 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 425 

should ever become willing to traverse the hills and val- 
leys of oar noble old Commonwealth upon an errand so 
utterly hopeless ; nor do I see how any one can consider 
such a presumptuous effort for the renovation of his faded 
o-lories at all possible who bears in recollection the curious 
and edifying fact that, according to accounts bearing evi- 
dent tokens of credibility, the late imperial despot of 
Richmond has, within the last twelve months, or some 
such space of time, on at least one notable occasion, found 
it impracticable to travel, even on a well-arranged railroad 
car, from Memphis to Huntsville, without finding him- 
self inextricably involved in a predicament exceedingly 
similar to the one so glowingly described by Homer, who 
tells us that Mars was found at one time, and exhibited 
to the view of the Celestials, by Vulcan, in an ingenious 
wire-constructed cage, which he had managed, amid the 
sweet hours of nocturnal slumber, to cast about the tierce 
God of War and Venus, his luckless consociate in bliss : 
at sight of which sadly ludicrous spectacle all Olympus 
was stirred to its foundations, 

And unextinguished Laughter shook the skie.s. 

I must say to my excellent friend, Senator BrOwnlow, 
with unaffected sincerity, that I have lost all that desire 
of official advancement of any kind which I have once, 
perhaps, felt too fervently, and that though the good peo- 
ple of Mississippi, of California, and of Tennessee have 
severally, in former years, done me far more than justice 
in their estimate of my limited personal deserts, I have no 
disposition whatever further to trouble the people or their 
representatives anywhere with my own claims to official 
advancement. At present I am enjoying in the most 
ample manner the luxury of individual independence. I 
think, speak, and write exactly as I please, either in con- 



42H CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

demnation of the wicked or in commendation of the 
good, whether in places of authority or in private life ; 
and this to me is as near an approach to heavenly beati- 
tude as one yet in the vale of mortality should dare to 
aspire to. In truth, I have of late, more from an observa- 
tion of the experience of others than on account of any- 
thing which has ever happened to myself personally, been 
much inclined to apply the beautiful language of the 
famed Archbishop of Cambrai descriptive of the arts ne- 
cessary to be used in order to conciliate the favor of the 
crowned potentates of earth, to the case of such as seek 
the affection and support of the sovereign people of our 
own age and country, and to say with him : 

Oh ! que on est malhereux, quand on est au dessus du reste des 
lioinmes! souvent on ne pent voir la verite par ses propres yeux ; on 
est environne de gens qui l'empechent d'arriver jusqu 'a celui qui com- 
mande; chacun est interesse ale troniper ; eliaeun, sous une apparence 
de zele cache son ambition. On fait seinblant d'aimer le roi, et on 
n'aime que les richesses qu'il clonne ; on l'aime sipeu, que pour obtenir 
ses faveurs on le rtatte et on le trahit. 



CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 127 



REMINISCENCE No. XNXIX. 

THE DUELLO — LIFE IN THE SOUTH PERSONAL COMBAT — THE 

ROB ROY OF THE MISSISSIPPI A THRILLING NARRATIVE — 

REMINISCENCES OF SARGENT S. PRENTISS, ALEXANDER K. 
m'clung, AND OTHERS. 

In the winter of 1830-'31 I left Tuscumbia, Alabama, 
after a residence in that qniet and pleasant village of live 
years, and migrated to the State of Mississippi. Having 
very foolishly violated the provisions of the legislative 
act of the former State prohibitory of dueling, and hav- 
ing been disqualified thereby for the practice of my pro- 
fession for more than three years, and the business of the 
courts in that particular locality having meanwhile 
greatly diminished, I had some months before prepared 
myself as well as I could for the exercise of my profession 
in the city of New Orleans, and was, in point of fact, ac- 
tually on my way there to join the celebrated Seth Bar- 
ton as a co-partner in the duties of a calling in which I 
had always felt the deepest interest, when, stopping for a 
few days in the town of Natchez, on my way to the re- 
nowned Crescent City, circumstances" soon arose there 
which brought me to the conclusion to remain in the 
young and rising State where I then was, which was, 
upon the whole, perhaps the very best thing I could possi- 
bly have done. 

Natchez was *it that time an eminently nourishing 
commercial city, and was the abode of a refined, intelli- 
gent, prosperous, and hospitable population. The Su- 
preme Court of the State was then in session there, and 
various other courts of subordinate jurisdiction were sit- 



428 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

ting from time to time daring my sojourn in that vicin- 
age. I heard a number if cases argued with great learn- 
ing and ability, and found the judges of the courts and 
the members of the bar all exceedingly polite and accom- 
modating. I formed there many pleasant and valuable 
acquaintances, every individual of whom I believe has 
since deceased. It was now that I saw the renowned 
Sargent 8. Prentiss for the first time. He had just been 
admitted to the bar, and was awakening great expecta- 
tions of future distinction and usefulness. About two 
years before Mr. Prentiss had landed in Natchez, as I re- 
peatedly heard from his own lips, with a single dime in 
his pocket. He had no acquaintance there, and had as 
yet not studied a profession. His college course had just 
been completed at an excellent institution in New En- 
gland, and being quite proficient in the branches of learn- 
ing to which he had been giving his attention, he de- 
termined to make an effort to obtain a small private 
school. In this he succeeded, and he followed this re- 
spectable vocation for a year or two, during which period 
he was applying himself with extreme diligence to the 
study of law. The distinguished Robert J. Walker, then 
a lawyer in full practice, was kind enough to open his 
library to his eager and inquiring mind, and he was soon 
able to obtain license to practice in all the courts of the 
State of Mississippi. Immediately on making his debut at 
the bar he was invited by General Felix Huston to enter 
his office as a full partner, and some two or three months 
after this I had the honor of seing him, as I have men- 
tioned. 

There w r as much that was remarkable in the appear- 
ance and bearing of Mr. Prentiss at this time. He was 
not more, I think, than live feet six-and-a-half inches in 
height ; was very stoutly built, and well proportioned. 
His head was somewhat large when compared with hie 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 429 

body ; it was one that a Grecian artist might well desire 
to copy. His forehead was wide, high, and almost semi- 
circular in its outline — so admirably were all the more 
important phrenological organs developed. His eye- 
brows were full, but not bushy, and were gently arched. 
His eyes were large, bright, and of an expression in which 
the absolute fearlessness of his nature was very happily 
blended with the rarest geniality of spirit and the keenest 
relish for the ludicrous. He had but a moderate beard, 
and always kept his face cleanly shaven. His chest was 
one of greatest expansiveness, and, though perfectly 
straight between the shoulders, a stranger approaching him 
from the rear could not avoid being struck with the sin- 
gular breadth and fullness of the whole tergal superficies. 
His nose was Grecian, and was both beautiful in its shape 
and highly expressive. His upper lip was a little shorter 
than is customary, and of a flexibility*! have never seen 
equaled. Often was he seen to curl it up, both in mirth 
and anger, displaying to view a set of strong, well set, 
and beautifully white teeth. He had all his life suffered 
from a lameness in one of his feet, and was said to have a 
o-ood deal of sensitiveness in regard to its malformation, 
though this I never was able to discover. He hobbled, of 
course, very perceptibly in his gait, and would, I suppose, 
have found it difficult to walk at all without the aid of 
the large stick which was his perpetual attendant. When 
I was introduced to him forty-two years ago, Natchez 
was already full of his fame. He had delivered several 
speeches at the bar, which all admitted had never been 
equaled there, either in vigor of argument, brilliancy of 
expression, or rich and flowing facetiousness. Though 
very modest by nature, yet he had already had such 
proofs of his own mental superiority to all with whom he 
was thrown in competition that he had naturally acquired 
a noble confidence in his own powers, which could not. 



430 CASkEf OF kEMlNtSCENCESi 

but be more or less apparent, both in his aspect and de- 
meanor, and alike in the discussions of the forum and 
in ordinary converse. I was talking last week with that 
man of exalted genius and discriminating judgment, the 
Hon. Joseph Holt, in reference to his former illustrious 
rival in oratory at the Mississippi bar, and I was glad to 
find that his opinion of Mr. Prentiss' extraordinary powers 
was fully in unison with my own. I have been long satis- 
fied that in reference to all. the faculties and graces which 
constitute the orator Sargent S. Prentiss was equal to al- 
most any man of modern times, and such is my estimate 
of him in this respect that my admiration of any man's 
mind would very much abate whom I knew to have ex- 
pressed a different opinion after once listening to him in 
a case calculated to draw his remarkable powers into full 
display. At times he was indeed most electrical in his 
utterances, reminding one forcibly of the soul-thrilling 
strains of an Isaiah or an Ezekiel, of the majestic thun- 
derings of a Pericles or a Patrick Henry, or of the tender 
heart-melting pathos of a Somerfield or a Maffit. I was 
not at all surprised to see it published in the newspapers of 
Boston many years ago, on the occasion of Mr. Prentiss' 
visit to that city for the first time, that even in the midst 
of the memorable dinner speech which he there delivered, 
Mr. Webster and Mr. Everett, with eyes overflowing un- 
der his wondrous enunciations, were heard generously 
whispering to each other: "We have never heard such 
eloquence as this before." 

That Mr. Prentiss was a man of fearless temper, almost 
sometimes bordering upon audacity, nobody could possi- 
bly know better than this reminiscent ; that he was kind 
of nature, generous, honorable, truthful, and intensely pa- 
triotic all the world believes ; that he was a faithful 
friend, a tender husband, and an obedient and devoted 
son the fullest evidence has been long since given to the 



dASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 431 

public. Were I to say anything which could at all de. 
tract from the picture already drawn of this estimable 
person, I could only say that it seemed to me that in his 
atter years — not having sufficient leisure, perhaps, to de- 
vote to books of science and the volumes of varied litera- 
ture — his intellectual culture did not exactly keep pace 
with his native faculties. 

It is gratifying to me to remember that I once voted 
for S. S. Prentiss when he was a candidate for Congress, 
against the regularly nominated ticket of my own party, 
just as now I should rejoice to recollect that I had co-op- 
erated in elevating to the Presidency of the Union two 
such noble-spirited and gifted American statesmen as 
Henry Clay and Daniel Webster ; whose names, could 
they be inscribed on the Presidential scroll in lieu of two 
others that I could specify, would transmit our loved Re- 
public to the men of other ages invested with a grand and 
imperishable luster that all the vain and heartless tri- 
umphs of faction, devoted to the ingathering of the vul- 
gar and perishable spoils of office, can never compensate. 

I heard nearly all of Mr. Prentiss' most renowned ora- 
torical efforts at the bar, in legislative assemblies, and in 
presence of the pe ople. I should say that his speech in 
prosecution of Alonzo Phelps, " the Rob Roy of the Mis- 
sissippi, (as he himself felicitously entitled him ;) the one 
he made in prosecution of Mercer Byrd ; his much-talked- 
of effort at Nashville in the summer of 1840, during the 
Presidential campaign of that period, and that oft-com- 
mended address before the House of Representatives in 
Congress in vindication of his claim to a seat in that 
body, were his master-pieces. I chanced to be enlisted in 
the defense both of Phelps and Byrd, and had therefore 
a most favorable opportunity of appreciating the power 
exhibited on the part of the prosecution. Alonzo Phelps 
was a native of ~New England. According to his own 



432 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

autobiographical confession, (drawn up chiefly by himself, 
but in my own presence, a few days before his death, 
while detained as a prisoner,) he had, in a fit of jealousy, 
slain a rival lover in his native vicinage, secreted the 
body of his victim in a neighboring mill-pond, and fled to 
the valley of the Mississippi. He had here been a wan- 
derer for many years, seldom entering a human habitation, 
and subsisting altogether on the raw meat of squirrels and 
other wild animals which he had captured in the chase. 
He had long infested the banks of the Mississippi, had 
committed eight murders and more than sixty robberies, 
and had a dozen times broken jail and escaped the pun 
ishment of the law. Strange to say, he was a ripe and ac- 
curate scholar, and when taken prisoner, a few weeks 
subsequent to the perpetration of his last murder, had, as 
I personally know, a pocket copy of Horace in his posses- 
sion, which he read with great facility and with far more 
relish for the rare beauties of the poetic friend and protege 
of the great Mecamas than Lord Byron reports himself 
to have at any time done. The trial of Phelps took place 
about four weeks after my last hostile meeting with Pren- 
tiss, and when I defended him I was still hobbling on 
crutches. A vast crowd was in attendance on the day of 
trial at the court-house in Vicksburg. Judge Montgom- 
ery, a learned and able functionary, who, I am glad to 
know, is still living, presided on the occasion. I was aided 
in the defense by two very accomplished gentlemen, Mr. 
John Gildart, of Woodville, Miss., and Mr. Pelton, then a 
resident of Natchez, now a wealthy sugar planter of Louis- 
iana, and a most worthy and interesting gentleman. General 
Felix Houston and several other attorneys of rank co-op- 
erated with Mr. Prentiss in the prosecution. This gen- 
tleman on that occasion delivered by far the most elo- 
quent and effective speech I ever heard at the bar. It 
would have given increased fame to Erskine, to Mcintosh, 



CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 433 

or to Curran. His delineation of the character of the ac- 
cused was most masterly, in the course of which he be- 
stowed upon him the imperishable cognomen of " The 
Rob Roy of the Mississippi," in allusion to his habitually 
levying " black mail " upon the travelers whom he, from 
time to time, encountered on the highways along the 
banks of the Mississippi ; hundreds of whom he had rob- 
bed, and some of them under truly romantic and ludicrous 
circumstances. Phelps had been, of course, relieved from 
his irons before being brought into court for trial ; but it 
had been deemed expedient to surround him with an 
armed guard. His appearance on the occasion was very 
striking and impressive. He was a muscular, well-shaped 
man, about five feet eleven inches in height, and evidently 
possessed of great physical vigor and activity. He had 
a particularly fair complexion, a good deal freckled from 
constant exposure to the air. His hair was blood-red, 
was much inclined to curl, and his crispy, snake-like locks 
stood stiffly up over and about his cranium with a singu- 
larly fierce and menacing aspect. His keen, gray eyes 
exhibited a curious blending of audacity and furtiveness. 
Prentiss' speech galled and irritated him greatly. When 
the inspired orator looked round upon the prisoner with a 
most withering glance of scorn and indignation, Phelps, in 
the desperate agony of the moment, stooped and whis- 
pered in my ear the following terrific words: "Tell me 
whether I stand any chance of acquittal, and tell me 
frankly ; if my case is hopeless I will snatch a gun 
from the guard nearest me and send Mr. Prentiss to hell 
before I shall myself go there." Never was I so much 
embarrassed in my life. I saw that my robbing and mur- 
dering client was in dead earnest. I did not doubt that 
Mr. Prentiss was at this moment completely in his power. 
If he should slay him he would deprive of life one whom 
I could not help loving and admiring much, despite the 
28 r 



484 CASKET OF REMINISCENCED 

unkind relations then existing between ns. Were Pren- 
tiss slain by the hands of this fiendish ruffian immedi- 
ately after this whispering intercourse with me, who of 
all that crowd would hold me guiltless? I may have 
done wrong, but frankness constrains me to confess that I 
said to this wretch, " You are not in the least danger ; 
we will make a motion in arrest of judgment after a 
while, or for a new trial, which will save you from all 
further annoyance." Prentiss concluded his speech ; the 
jury returned a prompt verdict of "guilty," and Phelps 
was remanded to his cell, there to await the execution of 
the sentence passed upon him. Meanwhile I was again 
summoned to the prison to aid this man in the prepara- 
tion of his confession, a document afterward published as 
his "Autobiography." Before the writing of it was com- 
pleted I had to leave Vicksburg for one of the courts in 
the interior of the State. I left on the table where I had 
been writing a leaden inkstand for Phelps' use, out of 
which I had been myself writing. After scribbling some 
twenty or thirty pages of manuscript in addition, he 
closed by the declaration that he did not intend to be 
hung; that he had once been .a soldier, and he intended 
to die the death of a soldier. After this he asked that a 
preacher of the Gospel should be sent for to minister to 



him the last spiritual consolation. Rev. Mi\^M!!r?hall, 
then, as now, a resident of Vicksburg, was sent for and 
came. In the meantime Phelps had prepared himself for 
the performance of an extraordinary feat. He had con- 
trived in some way to saw the manacles which bound his 
hands almost in two, so that with a strong effort heeould 
burst them asunder. He had enveloped the leaden ink- 
stand in a stocking, and stood with it grasped in both 
hands behind the door when Mr. Anding, the jailor, 
opened it and conducted in Mr. Marshall. With a single 
blow lie knocked down the jailor. Mr. Marshall had time 



CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 



435 



to fly into another room, which he saw open, and had suf- 
ficient presence of mind to lock himself therein securely. 
By this time Phelps, having made an unsuccessful effort 
to disencumber his hands, snatched a large knife from 
the belt of Mr. Anding, walked out of the door of 
his own cell, closing the door behind him, and ad- 
vanced to the outer door of the jail. By this time the 
alarm had been given, and Mr. Howard, the sheriff, came 
to the jail yard with a number of attendants, many of 
whom were armed. The outer door was forced open, by 
order of the sheriff", by the use of axes. The first man 
that entered saw blazing before his face the uplifted knife 
of Mr. Anding, which Phelps held firmly in both of his 
fettered hands. The door-opener recoiled, and Phelps 
marched forth. The crowd incontinently gave way be- 
fore him. He strode a few steps toward the gate of the 
prison yard. The sheriff struck him a severe blow over 
the head with a heavy gun which he held in his hands, 
which slightly stunned him. He still strode forward, got 
without the gate, and was rapidly descending the hill to- 
ward the river, when brickbats, sticks, and other mis- 
siles were hurled at him in great number. One of the 
brickbats struck him in the small of the back and seri- 
ously disabled him. Upon this, he turned suddenly round 
to the sheriff, who was pursuing him with a loaded gun, 
and demanded death at his hands. He fired, and there 
was an end to the earthly career of " The Rob Roy of the 
Mississippi." 

In the case of Mercer Byrd, already mentioned, Mr. 
Prentiss was employed to prosecute by Alexander Gr. 
McNutt, afterward G-overnor of the State. His fee for 
prosecution was $4,000. The prisoner was charged with 
being accessory after the fact to the murder of a Mr. 
Cameron, McNutt's copartner in a cotton plantation. 
Four other negroes had been previously charged with the 



436 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

commission of this murder, whom I had myself prosecuted 
to conviction, at the instance of the County Court of 
Warren county. Judge Sharkey, Judge Coulter, and 
myself were employed to defend Byrd. Twice was he 
convicted, and twice did he get his sentence reversed b} T 
the decision of the Supreme Court of the State. A third 
trial now occurred. Byrd had now to meet dangers far 
greater than those he had been previously compelled to 
encounter. Stewart's famous book prognosticating the 
general insurrection of the slaves of the South against 
their owners had just gained circulation, and the popular 
mind in Mississippi was in a state of excitement difficult 
to be conceived by those who were not witnesses thereof. 
It may be well conjectured that Mr. Prentiss made the 
most of this state of things. Never shall I forget his ter- 
rible delineation, in his concluding speech, of Mercer 
Byrd on horseback, at the head of an army of infuriated 
blacks, burning, slaying, and destroying all that, they 
encountered in their "fiery and desolating career. Mercer 
Byrd, being a .freeman of color, of uncommon intelligence 
and of most commanding aspect, was a fine subject for 
the display of Mr. Prentiss' rare powers of delineation. 
The jury almost convicted him in the box, but several of 
them often told me afterward that they deeply regretted 
the verdict, for they then thought Byrd innocent, though 
Mr. Prentiss' irresistible eloquence had driven them to 
the verdict which had taken away his life. 

There are tacts connected with Mercer Byrd's subse- 
quent confession of a singularly startling and distressful 
character, which I may notice hereafter, but which, for 
particular reasons, I shall not mention here. 

Of Alexander K. McCluiig I have promised to give 
some account. He was born in my own native county of 
Fauquier, in Virginia, but was reared in Kentucky. He 
was nephew to Chief Justice Marshall, his mother being 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 437 

sister to that eminent personage. I never met with Colo- 
nel McClung until some time in the autumn of 1832. He 
was then only about twenty-three years of age, was ex- 
ceedingly good-looking, and of most modest and gentle- 
manly manners. He was said to have inherited a hand- 
some patrimony, but to have pretty well gotten through 
with it before his arrival in Mississippi. He had been 
educated for the navy, and had been on several interesting 
expeditions as a midshipman before I met him first. He 
had already fought several duels, information of which 
preceded his advent to the State of Mississippi. His first 
affair of honor was with a brother midshipman, whom I 
afterward knew well as Commodore Hinton, of the Texan 
navy. This duel had been fought on the coast of South 
America, and in it McClung had been wounded in one 
of his arms. His second affair of honor was with a first 
cousin of his, a young Mr. Marshall. McClung was the 
challenged party, had quietly received the fire of his ad- 
versary, and had then fired in the air, after which the 
parties had been reconciled. He reached Mississippi just 
before my second fight with Mr. Prentiss occurred, and 
he acted as my second. This affair accidentally brought 
him into collision with a young gentleman of about the 
same age, known as General Allen. The precise particu- 
lars of their misunderstanding I never knew distinctly, 
and if I did I should not here detail them, These young 
gentlemen soon after became bitter foes. Allen passed 
one morning through the town of Clinton, where I was 
then residing, declaring that he was on his way to Jack- 
son, where McClung was located, in order to bring this 
gentleman to a full responsibility for all the grievances 
which he considered himself to have received at his hands. 
Not being willing to have one to whom I was so much 
indebted taken by surprise, I mounted on horseback and 
pushed across the country by a road much shorter than 



438 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

the one commonly traveled, and notified McClung of the 
impending danger. The parties in an hour or two met on 
the street-side, both thoroughly armed, and after discuss- 
ing the matters in dispute between them for some time in 
a very tempestuous manner withdrew to their respective 
boarding-houses. I had hoped that this painful affair 
was over, and became engaged in some urgent professional 
' business, when I heard that a duel was about to occur 
between them on the verge of the town of a very despe- 
rate character. The parties did, in point of fact, meet 
about sunset that evening on the bank of Pearl river, in 
presence of a numerous concourse of citizens, each armed 
with six pistols. They were stationed by the seconds at 
the distance of sixty yards from each other ; the word of 
command was given, and both the antagonists advanced. 
Allen moved forward rapidly, exclaiming: " Now we will 
see who of us is a d — d coward I" McClung, after having 
taken a single step, stopped, saying in response, with great 
coolness: "Yes, we shall see." At the same time he 
raised his pistol and fired. At the distance of thirty 
paces Allen was shot through the mouth ; several of the 
poor fellow's teeth were torn away, and part of his tongue 
amputated. He died in great torture a few hours there- 
after. This duel should never have been allowed to occur. 
I have never doubted that the difficulty between these 
two very promising and brilliant young men would have 
proved easy of adjustment had proper and seasonable in- 
terposition occurred. My own relations with the parties 
were unfortunately such as to disqualify me altogether 
for the part of a peacemaker, else I certainly should not 
have been slow to perform this duty. I had, a year or 
two before, by interfering between General Allen and a 
particular friend of mine, Mr. Philips, been able to suc- 
ceed in preventing a fatal meeting, after the parties had 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 439 

traveled sixty miles for the purpose of shedding each 
other's blood upon a mere punctilio. 

Colonel McClung was afterward engaged in a duel with 
Mr. Menifee, which terminated fatally to the latter. Of 
this affair I have only to say that I never met with any 
one who supposed that Colonel McClung had been seri- 
ously to blame. 

He was a lawyer by profession, and had doubtless mas- 
tered the legal science very thoroughly, but he had never 
been much concerned in practice. He was a man of high 
literary culture, and was, perhaps, the ablest and most 
polished writer that Mississippi ever contained. About 
the year 1844 he established a newspaper in the city 
of Jackson, called The True Issue, the numbers of 
which attracted great notice at the time, and impressed 
all who read them with the fullest conviction as to the 
powers and attainments of the author. He explored the 
questions of a national bank and a protective tariff with 
a display of originality and logical power which greatly 
extended his fame. In illustration of the merits of these 
productions of his gifted pen I may be permitted to relate 
a rather curious anecdote. Mr. Prentiss was invited to 
visit the Northern States in the summer of that year for 
the purpose of discussing the questions involved in the 
Presidential canvass. He accepted the invitation thus 
extended, and in the course of a few weeks delivered a 
series of harangues which brought upon him much and 
deserved commendation. Some of the readers of the 
newspapers about Jackson called Colonel McClung's at- 
tention to the fact that Mr. Prentiss had incorporated into 
his addresses considerable portions of the editorial arti- 
cles which had previously appeared in The True Issue, 
without giving to that paper the proper credit therefor. 
Colonel McClung felt somewhat aggrieved by this conduct 
of Mr. Prentiss (though for this gentleman he certainly 



440 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

had much esteem and friendship) and he determined to 
hold a special interview with him on the subject. This 
interview afterward took place at the celebrated restaura- 
teur in Jackson known as " Spangler's," where the follow- 
ing dialogue substantially occurred : 

Mr, McClung. Mr. Prentiss, I have seen that you had 
repeated verbatim in the speeches recently delivered by 
you in the North copious extracts from articles previously 
emanating from my pen, and without giving me any credit 
therefor. Pray, how did this occur ? 

Prentiss. I will explain with the greatest pleasure. I 
was called so very suddenly to the North that I had no 
time to make adequate preparation for the delivery of 
the speeches claimed from me by our party. I was some- 
what embarrassed about the matter ; but I fortunately 
recollected that you, my excellent and accomplished friend, 
had written upon the questions upon which I was ex- 
pected to descant with singular power and eloquence ; 
and knowing your devotion to the Whig cause, and your 
friendship for me personally, as well as the peculiar gen- 
erosity of your nature, I had no hesitancy about appro- 
priating what you had thus so ably written in the man- 
ner reported to you. Had I known where to find matter 
better than that which you had thus supplied perhaps I 
might have been a borrower elsewhere. Had I formally 
given you credit at the time for what I was so effectively 
using, I should have incurred the risk of greatly impair- 
ing the influence of your noble utterances and of dimin- 
ishing the eclat which I was myself acquiring by your 
help. I borrowed ideas from you freely and unceremoni- 
ously, just as I should expect you to use my purse at any 
time should your own become temporarily exhausted. 

It is almost unnecessary to state that this explanation 
was most satisfactory, and that the two friends were only 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 441 

additionally endeared to each other by this felicitous 
eclaircissement 

When the death of Mr. Clay occurred, the Legislature 
of Mississippi invited Colonel McClung to deliver an ora- 
tion at the State Capitol in honor of the illustrious de- 
parted. This oration I had the satisfaction of hearing, 
and I afterward read it with attention, and more than 
once. It is perhaps the very best of all the eulogies de- 
livered about this time upon the august statesman and or- 
ator of Kentucky, and our Legislature ordered live thou- 
sand copies of it to be printed for distribution. 

Colonel McClung greatly distinguished himself in the 
Mexican War, and in the celebrated charge upon the fort 
at Monterey had been the foremost man, thus covering 
himself with immortal honor. He was lieutenant colo- 
to the 1st Mississippi regiment, of which. Jefferson Davis 
was full col onel. 

W^heu certain new regiments were raised during the 
Administration of Mr. Pierce for frontier service this war. 
worn veteran had hoped, as his numerous friends had also 
done, that he would receive some respectable commission 
from President Pierce, or rather from the Department of 
War, which had full control of this matter. This noble 
scion of a noble stock was very much reduced in his pecu- 
niary circumstances at the time, and had been repeatedly 
compelled to tax the generosity of his friends in a manner 
painfully humiliating to his own proud and sensitive feel- 
ings. For some weeks he had reason to believe that his 
merits and sufferings would not be wholly overlooked by 
the Administration. But he had taken a veiy active and 
zealous part against secessionism in the memorable Missis- 
sippi campaign of 1851, and it appeared in the sequel 
that there was no official favor in store for him in Wash- 
ington city. On the morning that his last spark of hope 
became extinct, this noble-spirited and gifted man sought 



442 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

relief from all the cares and disappointments of life in sui- 
cide ! 

Early in the year 1836 the Hon. Charles Lynch was in- 
augurated Governor of Mississippi. lie gave a levee at 
his office to his fellow-citizens generally. Among other 
guests, the celebrated George Poindexter was present. He 
was then a candidate for re-election to the United States 
Senate, and the Democrats of the Legislature had nomi- 
nated Robert J. Walker as a candidate in opposition to 
him. There was pretty free circulation of stimulating 
liquids of one kind or another at Governor Lynch's party, 
and Mr. Poindexter (a thing not very unusual with him 
in those days) had imbibed very freely. At the instance 
of some of his admiring friends lie mounted a table and 
delivered a furious political address, in which General 
Jackson, whom he mortally hated, was most unmercifully 
abused and ridiculed in connection with certain official 
appointments which he had then recently made in the 
State of Mississippi, including that of Colonel Samuel 
Guinn to the position of register of public hinds, at the 
town of Clinton. Guinn chanced to be present, and, upon 
the impulse of the moniont, hissed the distinguished ora- 
tor. This greatly excited several of Mr. Poindexter's 
friends, and, among others, Judge Isaac Caldwell, a 
former partner of E'oindexter "in the practice of the law. 
Much unkind language was interchanged between gentle- 
men on either side. Guinn, who was a particular friend of 
mine, and one whom I greatly admired and loved, sent to 
Clinton for me in order to take my advice as to what was 
to be done in the case. I advised him not to challenge 
Caldwell, but to leave matters as they were for the pre- 
sent. The election for United States Senator came off the 
very day that I reached Jackson, and Mr. Walker was 
elected. This result embittered Mr. Poindexter and his 
friends very much. The clay after this defeat a challenge, 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 443 

drawn up in the handwriting of Poindexter, was dis- 
patched by Caldwell to Guinn. He accepted, to light next 
morning at daylight, just outside the limits of the village. 
Guinn selected me as his second. We proceeded to the 
ground at the time agreed on, and found the adverse 
party already there and a vast concourse of citizens in at- 
tendance. All the neighboring villages had [toured out 
the tide of population to take a view of the expected 
combat. The parties were each of them armed with six 
pistols. They were, upon receiving the word, to move 
upon each other and fire at pleasure. I won the word, 
and gave it in the usual manner. Never did I see more 
valor displayed than by these combatants. They mutu 
ally advanced, tiring, exchanging the first shot without 
effect. Caldwell's second shot took effect upon Guin's left 
breast. He braced himself immediately in the most com- 
posed and majestic maimer and fired a third time. His 
third ball struck Caldwell in the very center of the abdo- 
men. Both of these heroic men fell to the ground ; their 
friends gathered around them; they were quickly stripped 
of their upper vestments, and each of them seemed to be 
mortally wounded. Poor Caldwell died that very da}^ ; 
Guinn survived for a twelvemonth, but was never after- 
ward a sound and healthy man. 

In two or three years the beautiful, accomplished, and 
opulent widow of Caldwell was persuaded to marry a sec- 
ond time. Her second husband was a young man from 
_"N"ew York, but little known in Mississippi. In about 
two years the village of Clinton w T as violently agitated by 
reports of the sudden and bloody death of Mrs. Caldwell, 
from violence in her own house, by some unknown hand. 
Circumstances existed which begot painful suspicions 
that her death had been the result of a painful and sud- 
den dispute between herself and the man with whom she 
had so surprisingly intermarried, and in a manner most 



444 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

disgraceful to the latter. Colonel Robertson, her ex- 
cellent brother-in-law, a man of the most elevated 
standing, visited me one morning for personal con- 
sultation in reference to these melancholly facts, 
and wished to have a criminal prosecution instituted 
Before this was positively determined on, the individual 
suspected had departed the vicinage, no longer perhaps to 
be heard of on this side of the grave. Such details as 
these might well nauseate any one with the whole busi- 
ness of dueling. 

I could relate several more such scenes almost equally 
agonizing- ; but I forbear. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 445 



REMINISCENCE No. XL. 

ELOQUENCE — A REMARKABLE MAN — SKETCH OF JOHN NEWLAND 
MAFFIT — AN ELECTRIFYING SPEAKER. 

One of the most remarkable men in several respects 
that I have ever seen was the Rev. John Newland Maffit. 
I met him first in the year 1835. Several times did I 
hear him preach, and I had the happiness of entertaining 
him for a few days at my own residence in the town of 
Clinton, Mississippi. He has been at different times the 
subject of much praise, and it was not his fortune alto- 
gether to escape decrial. As I had a pretty good oppor- 
tunity of learning his true character, and of estimating 
his abilities, I propose to state my own present recollec- 
tions of this famous individual. 

Mr. Maffit was an Irishman by birth, and, as I suppose, 
could by no means boast an aristocratic descent. His 
early education had been very limited, and nearly all that 
he ever knew of books had been obtained in a very 
irregular manner. I do not suppose that he had ever fully 
mastered any important department of science. He was 
but slightly acquainted with any language but that which 
he spoke ; but I have met very few men indeed of any 
profession who seemed to have at their command a larger 
stock of pure and well-chosen English words in which to 
express their thoughts and sentiments in an impressive 
and captivating manner. He had evidently seen much 
of the world, and was very familiar with the usages pre- 
vailing in the various classes of our population. He was 
of rather low stature — not being, as I should conjecture, 



446 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

more than live feet five inches in height. He was of ad- 
mirable proportions ; his movements were easy and grace- 
ful, and he might justly have been called a handsome man. 
He had a well-shaped head ; a smooth and commanding 
forehead ; a profuse suit of coal-black, glossy hair ; large 
and lustrous eyes; a handsome nose, mouth, and chin; 
and his countenance was one of the most bright and 
attractive I ever gazed upon. His voice was naturally 
strong and full, and he had evidently added much to 
its power by the most diligent and persevering culture. 
Some of its tones seemed to me to be the sweetest and 
most persuasive I had ever heard. His whole manner 
was in fact such that no one who listened to him for a 
single half hour could be at all inclined afterward to crit- 
icize any part of his most magical and soul-moving de- 
livery. I do not remember to have listened at any time 
to a public speaker who, in regard to everything under- 
stood to be embraced in the word action, at all equaled 
this warm-hearted and impassioned son of the Emerald 
Isle. I have known him to produce such effects upon 
large and intelligent audiences as I have never seen 
awakened by any other public speaker. There was a 
mystery about his rhetorical utterances that I was never 
able fully to comprehend, though so often exposed to 
their influence. Whilst speaking he really seemed to 
exert a sort of electrical power which it was almost im- 
possible to resist, and yet must it be confessed that I 
never heard from him a single discourse which was either 
very instructive or which left behind it useful and per- 
manent impressions of any kind whatever. His printed 
sermons were singularly cold and unimpressive, and it 
would have been difficult to find a single sentence in any 
of them upon which a person of refined aud discrimin- 
ating taste would have been disposed to lavish commend- 
ation on account either of the weight and value of the 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 447 

thoughts embodied therein, or the unusual beauty and 
polish of the diction employed. I have been long satisfied 
that Mr. Mam't possessed histrionic talents which would 
have won for him the most imperishable renown upon the 
stage, and I could not be easily persuaded that I have 
ever met a public speaker on either side of the Atlantic 
who was so thoroughly versed in all that appertains to the 
human voice as the grand instrument of persuasion. I 
have frequently said, in former years, what I now repeat, 
that, in my opinion, could he have been induced to deliver 
a course of lectures on elocution, accompanied with such 
practical illustrations as he would have found it easy to 
supply, the younger speakers of the country might have 
greatly profited by listening to them. 

Mr. Maffit was a man of very brilliant colloquial pow- 
ers. He was exceedingly kind and affable in social life, 
and, so far as I was able to judge, he was altogether free 
from envy and .personal malevolence. Many spoke of him 
in terms of decrial and ridicule who really knew but little 
either of his real character or history; and there were 
some circumstances with which he was fated to come into 
contact which should claim for him a most liberal allow- 
ance in regard to certain weaknesses and indiscretions which 
have been so freely imputed to him. His heart was warm 
and generous, his personal attachments were strong and 
lasting, and he ever cherished an ardent admiration for 
all that was lofty and heroic either in sentiment or in 
action. He was intensely devoted to his calling, and was 
doubtless as accessible as even Cicero himself to the voice 
of adulation. While he was electrifying multitudes by 
his inspiring eloquence, it is certain that he sometimes 
forgot the rules of moderation and forbearance, and grew 
impatient when artificial impediments of any kind were 
thrown in the waj T of his all-conquering powers of persua- 
sion, and that he was sometimes provoked both to com- 



448 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

plain and denounce aggressors upon his domain in lan- 
guage neither politic nor becoming. In illustration of 
the correctness of what has just been said I will here men- 
tion an occurrence to which general publicity has not, I 
think, heretofore been given. 

Iu the summer of 1836 I chanced to visit the town of 
Tuscambia, in the Tennessee valley, where I had at one 
time resided, and where I was still very well known. I 
found that Mr. Maffit had been there for several weeks, 
and that his extraordinary potentiality as a religious re- 
vivalist had been put in exercise in a truly wonderful 
manner. Day after day and night after night he had been 
preaching to large and enraptured audiences of ladies and 
gentlemen, and the interesting work in which he was so 
earnestly engaged was every moment deepening. Just at 
this time the young gentlemen of the vicinage made ar- 
rangements for a large and fashionable ball at one of the 
hotels of the town, of which due notice was given through 
all customary channels of communication. As the night 
for the coming off of this festive scene approached it was 
observed that Mr. Maffit began to exhibit striking signs 
of discontent. He went so far at length as openly to com- 
plain that this ball was intended to interfere with his 
protracted meeting, and he used on one occasion language 
of a most cutting and disparaging character in reference 
to those with whom a scheme of sinful enjoyment, so well 
calculated to operate as an impediment to his labors, had 
originated. The insulting terms employed by him in 
reprehension of the persons referred to were doubtless 
armed with special force and severity by his peculiar 
manner of enunciating them. It was hardly to have been 
expected that the worldlings of the vicinage would be 
altogether patient under this sort of assailment. In point 
of fact Mr. Maffit soon found that he had awakened a 
social combustion in Tuscumbia not at all likely to end 



CASKET OF REMIKISCMCFA 449 

in mere retaliatory invective. Very insulting and crimi- 
nating handbills were posted up in every part of the town, 
in which Mr. MaHit's character and alleged previous his- 
tory were most mercilessly dealt with. Caricatures of an 
exceedingly ingenious and suggestive nature were like- 
wise sent forth, such, in truth, as I dare not describe here. 
Formal notice, too, was given to Mr. Maffit that if he 
presumed again to preach in that settlement, certain spe- 
cified personal indignities of an unnamable kind would 
be inflicted upon his person. He still continued to hold 
forth to large audiences. At length warning was given 
him that if he spoke again in the church where he had 
previously ministered even his life would be taken. That 
this was a serious menace, and one likely to be executed, 
is sufficiently attested by the fact that a carriage which 
was proceeding from Tuscumbia one evening to the house 
of some hospitable gentleman in the country, and in which 
it was supposed Mr. Maffit was riding, was forcibly broken 
open by a masked and armed crowed, this gentleman hav- 
ing evidently escaped the fate intended for him by de- 
clining to ride in the carriage in question, which he did 
alone in consequence of his having been fortunately ap- 
prized of the scheme of violence which had been projected 
in time to save his life, or at least to avoid insulting treat- 
ment of the most extreme character. So intense and gen- 
eral was the excitement then raging that pious members 
of the Church, of both sexes, went often to the place of 
worship armed with pistols and daggers for the protection 
alike of their loved minister and for the vindication of 
their own religious rights. It was precisely at this criti- 
cal period of the affair that a committee of Methodist 
gentlemen very unexpectedly visited me for the purpose 
of asking my advice in regard to the course proper to be 
pursued in order to avoid the collision then apprehended. 
These gentlemen placed before me all the facts just related, 
29 r 



450 CASfeET OF REMINISCENCES. 

and requested me to accompany them to the Female Acad- 
emy, where Mr. Maffit was then being hospitably enter- 
tained, for the purpose of conferring with this gentleman 
in person as to the steps proper to be taken in his behalf. 
I at once complied with their desire; and I did so the 
more readily by reason of the fact that I knew Mr. Maffit 
to be at the. time a valued citizen of the State of Missis- 
sippi, and also the editor of a most interesting and useful 
newspaper then published in the city of Natchez. When 
we reached the academy a full and frank consultation was 
immediately had, the result of which was an arrangement 
that I should proceed to the Methodist church that very 
evening, and that, on being formally invited to address 
the assembled multitude in vindication of my Mississippi 
friend, I should ascend the pulpit for that purpose, and 
do what I could to assuage the fearful commotion then in 
progress. Perhaps I should here state that I could not 
but know that my interposition had not been sought be- 
cause of any opinion formed that I would be able to bring 
on this occasion any powers of persuasion of an extraor- 
dinary character, but simply because of the fact that 1 
had been, as heretofore mentioned, the editor of a some- 
what popular newspaper in Tuscumbia several years ante- 
cedent, and was therefore given credit for more influence 
over the younger members of society in the vicinage than 
I should ever have thought of claiming to possess. 

At the time specified I made my appearance at the 
church, according to arrangement, where I found Mr. 
Maffitt had already arrived. He had come to the place 
of trial in company with Mr. Robinson, the minister who 
ordinarily officiated there, with whom he was then seated 
in the pulpit. A profound stillness prevailed. Presently 
Mr. Robinson rose and announced to the audience that an 
old acquaintance and friend of theirs from the State of 
Mississippi was then present, (mentioning my name,) who, 



OA^KET OF REMINISCENCES. 451 

with their consent, would address them very briefly. 
After waiting a little while, in order to find out how this 
proposition was received by the crowd in attendance — 
having been invited a second time to come into the pul- 
pit — I did so, and proceeded at once in the kindest and 
most conciliatory manner at my command to perform the 
task allotted to me. I am certain that what I said would 
have failed to effect the pacification desired had I not, in 
the outset, declared that Mr. Maffit had expressly commis- 
sioned me to declare the deep regret which he felt at what 
had heretofore occurred ; and, also, in his name, formally to 
withdraw all the offensive language theretofore uttered 
by him. I need hardly say that, in my short address, I 
explained as well as I could Mr. Maffit's merits as a citi- 
zen, and extolled, according to my opinion of his deserts, 
both his extraordinary powers as a public speaker and his 
great usefulness as a minister of the church with which 
he was associated, as well as to the community in general, 
as an efficient and indefatigable champion and advocate 
of the great and sacred cause of Christian reform. Never 
in my life was I treated more kindly and respectfully 
than by that very numerous concourse of gentlemen and 
ladies. When my frank and unpretending remarks had 
been drawn to a close, Mr. Maffit rose up with a most 
modest and subdued aspect, and, after having uttered 
several sentences of a singularly kind and propitiatory 
character, delivered a discourse of about an hour's length, 
which in point of graceful and soul-stirring eloquence was 
equal to any oratorical effort I have at any time wit- 
nessed. The conflict which had been so tempestuously 
raging for more than a week was now at an end. So 
soon as the audience was dismissed a new scene had to 
be encountered : a committee came to invite me to accom- 
pany Mr. Maffit to the Female Academy, where, as was 
made known to us, a large concourse of the gentler sex 



452 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

would be found assembled, who desired to express their 
gratitude to me for the manner in which I had aided in 
the prevention of social violence, and in the restoration 
of general amicable feeling. On reaching the Academy 
I beheld a spectacle which I shall ever bear in pleasant 
recollection. A very large number of beautiful and well- 
dressed ladies, all dressed in white vestments, presented 
themselves by the clear light of the unclouded moon, 
bearing flowers in their hands, which might well have 
been mistaken for branches of palm. One of their number 
accosted me and poured forth one of the most glowing 
and beautiful addresses possible to be conceived of, in 
which I was more than once referred to in language of 
kind commendation which I was far from 'feeling that I 
deserved, but which was perhaps none the less welcome 
to me on that account. After this Mr. Mafnt and myself 
were conducted into the house, where Ave found a rich 
banquet spread, such as even the lords and princes of the 
earth might have been glad to partake of. On the next 
day I took leave of Mr. Maffit, and returned to my own 
home in Mississippi, after which I never had the pleasure 
of meeting him ; for in a few years from this remarkable 
occurrence the brilliant and gifted rhetorician, the genial 
and kind-hearted gentleman, the far famed religious revi- 
valist, ceased to tread that "green earth" to which I 
have often heard him allude in words of ecstatic affection, 
but upon Avhose surface there is much reason to fear he 
spent but few days of unalloyed and serene happiness. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 453 



REMINISCENCE No. XLI. 

C^ESARISM — GENERAL GRANT — SENSATIONAL NEWSPAPER AR- 
TICLES. 

This Reminiscent will close the series of numbers writ- 
ten for the Chronicle — for the purpose alone of contribut- 
ing so far as it may lay in his power to do so, to the pres- 
ent pacification of our country, and to a revival of for- 
mer fraternal sentiments among our people of all classes 
and sections— by submitting his own deliberate views up- 
on the subject of "Cresarism," now so vehemently agitated 
in certain sensational journals of a very extended circula- 
tion. Though I find it a little difficult to be serious in 
regard to a matter so egregiously fantastical in all its 
bearings, yet as I have been requested in several highly 
respectable quarters to present such views as I chance to 
entertain touching the dangers that some are now affect- 
ing to descry in the political firmament I do not feel at 
liberty to be silent. What I have to say at this time upon 
the topic alluded to will be found, I Hatter myself, in 
complete harmony with all that has heretofore emanated 
from me since the Reminiscences, now to be suspended for 
a time, were commenced, several weeks ago. 

Did I entertain the dismal apprehensions to which a 
certain class of political writers have of late given such 
free expression, I should be indeed one of the most un- 
happy of men. I have ever loved liberty with an earnest- 
ness of affection which no man can adequately set forth 
in words ; and I have always admired our peculiar form 
of government, almost' to the point of idolatry. I am not 
ashamed to avow the opinion, which I do most de- 



454 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

voutly entertain, that the political experiment which we 
are making in this country originated under the direct 
inspiration of that Divine Being from whom all good 
things emanate, and that its solution has heen thus far 
conducted under His all-wise and all-benevolent guidance. 
I have ever thought, and think at this moment, if possi- 
ble, more strongly than I ever heretofore have done, 
that the hopes of liberty throughout the world depend, 
in a great degree, upon our example and the degree of 
success which may seem to accompany it, as well as upon 
the sage and active fidelity of our counsels to others, not 
so happily situated as ourselves, touching the means proper 
to be used for the attainment of a true and orderly liberty, 
and for its steady and durable maintenance after it shall 
have been once acquired. 'Not the smallest doubt does 
my mind feel that the Constitution of the United States 
is by far the wisest and most securely guarded compact 
of government that the human intellect has ever been 
able to frame ; and I do devoutly believe that the recent 
amendments of that instrument have greatly added to its 
value and strengthened its claims to our affectionate re- 
gard. The more often I compare our civil institutions 
with those existing elsewhere the more fully am I con- 
firmed in the favorable opinion I have always cherished 
of that government under which we live. Everv time I 
have read over anew the debates which occurred in the 
Federal Convention while the Constitution was gradually 
assuming that beautiful organic form which it still so 
happily preserves, my gratitude to the wise and patriotic 
statesmen who nourished in that golden period of our 
history has been freshly warmed up and solidified. When 
I reperuse the immortal numbers of the Federalist, which 
I never fail to do at least once while our planet is moving 
through its orbit around the great source and center of 
heat and light, my swelling bosom never fails to confess, 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 455 

with a deep-drawn, but self-gratulating sigh, its intense, 
but speechless thankfulness to Him who sent oh earth 
three such men as Hamilton, Madison, and Jay to ex- 
pound its provisions and fix the interpretation of its vague 
or doubtful clauses. 

The well-known articles of confederation proposed to 
establish a "perpetual union" between these States; the 
Constitution, afterward accepted in lieu of these articles, 
asserts for itself that it has made this Union a " more; per- 
fect" one. Now, if, after all, the frame-work of our 
boasted Government shall turn out not to have been so 
providently constructed as to secure the continuance of its 
own vitality for even a single century, then, indeed, will 
it appear that our venerated forefathers have failed to at- 
tain one of the prime objects of their exertions, and the 
glories which have seemed heretofore to emblazon their 
temples must fade away into the dimness of nothingness. 

In regard to the amendments recently engrafted upon 
the Constitution I will here say, in addition to what I 
have heretofore said on this subject, that the effect of 
adopting them (which has been, in the estimation of some, 
to weaken the bond of our political alliance) has been ex- 
actly the opposite. I have been long of opinion that all 
three of these same amendments were wisely and season- 
ably superadded, and that they are all of them just such 
emendations, both in form and in substance, as the origi- 
nal draftsmen of the instrument would themselves have 
incorporated therein had they foreseen eighty -four years 
ago the grave and perilous conjunctures through which 
their descendants of the generation now passing away have 
been compelled to pass. My own warm approval of all 
these amendments was publicly avowed in writing in the 
city of Nashville, full two years before the celebrated 
"New .Departure " of Mr. Vallandigham beamed upon 
the country ; and since that period I have never had trie 



456 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

least reason to regret the assumption thus early of the 
only position which, in my opinion, can be held in har- 
mony with the general peace and tranquillity of the Re- 
public. So far am I from supposing that the late amend- 
ments have enfeebled the vinculum of the Constitution, or 
diminished the chances of its extended duration, that if 
really seems to my mind to be quite manifest that they 
were absolutely needed at the moment of their adoption 
as buttresses to the governmental fabric to which they 
were then annexed. We are all much in the habit of 
prayerfully uttering in regard to our unequaled institu- 
tions an exclamation which has now become a little trite: 
JEsto perpetua I Yet I suppose no one has supposed that 
even the Constitution of the United States was destined 
to last as long as the planet itself which we inhabit ; but 
it w T ould be indeed a most cruel disappointment of appa- 
rently well-founded hopes to see Gesarism, as it has been 
called, triumphing over it almost before all the sages who 
united in giving it form and consistence had passed from 
the stage of earthly existence ; yea, even at the very mo- 
ment when all the stragglers for freedom throughout the 
world are recognizing its wisdom and priceless value. 

So much for the Constitution itself and the chances of 
its permanent endurance. There are one or two circum- 
stances which have of late much increased my confidence 
in the long continuance of our present form of government 
and that union of States upon which it was primarily 
based. I will briefly state a few of these. The long- 
menaced experiment of secession has been at last formally 
tested in practice. This experiment has undeniably 
proved a signal and even a ridiculous failure, despite all 
the heroic blood poured forth so generously in homage of 
what was to prove at last a fanciful and contemptible 
ignusfatuus. The Federal Government, without any un- 
authorized or very dangerous expansion of its own legiti- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCKS U)7 

mate powers, has proved itself in the last thirteen years 
capable not only of defending its own existence agafnsl 

all the attacks of insurrectionary violence, but has also 
been eventually able to subject to deserved punishment 
the most powerful government beyond the ocean for dar- 
ing openly to countenance the efforts made for its over- 
throw. This double victory is eminently calculated to 
discourage similar attempts to disrupt the Federal Union 
in future, and to impart to the true friends of the repub- 
lican principle everywhere increased confidence in the 
durability of our particular scheme of government. The 
absurd and utterly untenable dogma of secession has be- 
come at last "a sounding brass and a tinkling symbol."., 
Its sulphuro-phosphorescent upholders may be now safely 
allowed to expound in whatever lofty and high-sounding 
phraseology their own tastes may approve the superhu- 
man glories which they may fancy to have marked its 
descent below the horizon of practical existence, to such 
infatuated men and women as may still cling with fool- 
ish pertinacity to the rotten and decaying fragments of 
their vainly cherished idol. 

It is an equally encouraging consideration that the 
brief and troublesome career of the so-called Southern 
Confederacy has triumphantly demonstrated the truth of 
the following propositions : That secession in the United 
States, if ever it shall be anywhere apparently successful 
for a time, will ever be found in the end have held in to 
its bosom the seeds of sell-destruction ; for no one can 
now doubt that wherever a half dozen or more of the 
States of which the Republic is composed shall have suc- 
ceeded, by whatever mode, in placing themselves beyond 
the controlling authority of the Federal Union, they will 
not be many months in getting up a squabble among them- 
selves for ascendency, or fall into bitter conflict upon 
some cpuestiou of local interest; and when thai shall have 



7f- <^>vtj 



458 CASKET OP REMINISCENCE. 

• 

occurred, the brilliant example of setting up a separate 
national flag already consummated in their sight will be 
assuredly imitated. Either the non-coercive theory of 
Mr. Buchanan will be applied, or the opposite one; in 
either of which events no result is likely to be achieved 
over which a reasonable mind would be inclined to rejoice. 
But experience has shown, in multiplied instances, the 
probability that whenever a line shall be drawn, in any 
direction, over the territorial surface of a country once 
composing a single nation, border wars will be sure to 
ensue. Border wars will of necessity bring about the 
creation of standing armies, and standing armies of any 
considerable strength are sure to eventuate in the down- 
fall of republican institutions. 

I now confidently assert that there has never been a 
time in the history of this Republic when the great body 
of the American people, North and South, East and West, 
were more firmly and inseparably attached to the free in- 
stitutions under which" we are living than at present. I 
shall venture on an additional assertion, the truth of 
which I am sure that a grave and dispassionate examina- 
tion will not fail to impress upon any sound and well con- 
stituted mind ; and that is, that at no former period of 
our history, not even during the administrations of Wash- 
ington and Jackson, were the Constitution and laws of 
the land more firmly and successfully maintained and en- 
forced than at the present moment. Never was more of 
moderation and forbearance put in exercise by the Execu- 
tive Department of the Government than we are daily 
and hourly witnessing. Never w T ere the blessings of civil 
and religious liberty more fully enjoyed by all classes of 
our people. At no former time have more multiplied 
evidences been furnished in all parts of this extended 
country of a pure and exalted love of liberty, and of a de- 
termination to maintain our republican form of govern 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 459 

meut against every influence which might he brought 
into conflict with it. Never was there, save in a few well- 
known localities, more of social and individual virtue, and 
of all those things which experience has shown most to 
aid in the maintenance of a healthful public spirit, and to 
keep alive a sage and wholesome watchfulness over those 
intrusted with power. . In the extended rural districts of 
our country this happy state of things is well known to 
prevail to an extent almost unprecedented. 

Never, I am sure, were our people less inclined to wel- 
come the establishment among them of anything in the 
form of an imperial despotism. The institutions of free- 
dom have been additionally endeared to millions of heroic 
hearts by the precious blood of late so lavishly poured 
forth in their defense. I do not believe that there are ten 
thousand men anywhere to be found on the surface of our 
country who would be willing to yield up our present 
form of government for any other whatever. We have 
facilities for the maintenance of free institutions such as 
the ancients never conjectured of, and of which our hon- 
ored forefathers themselves could have had but an imper- 
fect conception. Behold our representative form of gov- 
ernment ! Our partition of all governmental power among 
three distinct yet co-ordinate departments ; our distribu- 
tion of the law-making power, between two legislative 
branches of coequal dignity and power, operating con- 
stantly as checks and counter-checks upon each other ; 
our numerous local governments, all of them complete in 
their machinery, and of an organization similar in certain 
essential features, alike to each other and to that govern- 
mental establishment at the grand center of political at- 
traction ; our wide-spread and constantly expanding edu- 
cational institutions, carrying the lights of learning and 
relinement to every nook and corner of the nation ; our 
admirably organized judicial system, so wisely yet so en- 



-460 CASKET OF REMINISCENCE?. 

ergetically administered, except perhaps in a few isolated 
instances, all over the land ; the inestimable trial by jury ; 
the habeas corpus ; the newspaper press ; the telegram : 
railroads ; steamboats ; the public mail, andall the other fa- 
cilities for interchanging ideas ; for multiplying knowledge 
of every kiud ; for concentrating at any given point, in a 
few hours or days at most, the means of defense against 
all attempts of whatever kind to assail freedom or to vio- 
late the essential rights of the citizen I Who can take 
even the most superficial and cursory survey of these 
things without coming to the conclusion that the people 
of our own much-favored land and country do indeed possess 
such a capacity for self-government as never was possessed 
before by any people that the sun of heaven has yet shone 
upon ? 

It can not be denied that the late most deplorable civil 
war did leave behind it, in various forms, and in various 
localities, a good deal of demoralization and crime. This, 
though, is the well-known result of all wars and especially 
of all civil wars. The same demoralization, and from the 
operation of precisely the same causes, has been often ex- 
perienced in England in the course of her bloody and ex- 
hausting wars upon her own soil between hostile factions 
of English people. Other countries could be likewise 
cited, but it is not necessary. 

There is, in my opinion, not the least analogy between 
the condition of the Roman people in the days of either 
the first or second Caesar and that of the people of the 
United States at the present moment, and no inferences 
drawn from this remote source can be made at all availa- 
ble for the elucidation of the probable future of our own 
loved country. The populus Eomanus never, in point of 
fact, embraced, even in the days of Rome's greatest free- 
dom and prosperity, the Roman plebs. Rome never was a 
.Democracy ; she never attempted to make herself a rep re- 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 461 

sentativo Democracy or Republic. Rome was, from the 
days of the expiration of monarchical rule, in the time of 
Tarquinms Superbus, up even to the time of Marius' sev- 
enth consulship, nothing more nor less than a selfish and 
tyrannical aristocracy, beneath whose see] iters the great 
mass of the Roman populace groaned in continual servi- 
tude. The city of Rome was virtually the whole Repub- 
lic, if such a word as Republic might be in a certain loose 
s ense applied to it. A violent war of almost ever-raging 
factions constituted the almost unchanging history of the 
Roman people for nearly three centuries. The aristocratic 
or patrician rulers of Rome were selfish, unfeeling, and 
oppressive. The populace were little more than a wretched, 
undisciplined, unlettered, and unteachable mob. Outside 
of Rome there was naught besides a disgusting, squalid, 
brutifying servitude. What wonder, then, that Marius 
was able to force himself upon a seventh consulship by 
the aid of "only a few thousand wretched military ruffians ? 
Who can feel surprised to learn that Sylla, by a similar 
armed force, and hardly more numerous, was able to es- 
tablish himself almost unresisted in the office of perpetual 
dictator, amidst scenes of sweeping confiscation and butch- 
ery that sicken and nauseate the soul ? Caesar, Pompe}-, 
and Crassus were quietly allowed, in the sight of all Rome, 
to erect a triumviral despotism which for the time domi- 
nated over all things, either in Rome itself or in the des- 
olated provinces. When Ca?sar got ready to pass the 
Rubicon the Roman Senate declared that there was no 
hope even for temporary tranquillity and safety in the 
great city, except under the power of Pompey as sole con- 
sul. Cicero tells us that no matter how the great civil 
war might have terminated the same scenes of general 
carnage and confiscation would inevitably have ensued ; 
and he adduced evidence of the truth of this melancholy 
statement, drawn from the unblushing declarations of the 



4t>2 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

Pompeian leaders antecedent to* the decisive Pharsalian 
battle. The Roman people were indeed no longer fit for 
freedom, if they ever had been ; they were capable neither 
of appreciating it, nor of maintaining it. He, indeed, 
must have a strangely organized mind who imagines that 
he can see any points of similitude between the Roman 
people two thousand years ago and the forty millions 
of free American citizens who dwell in power and pros- 
perity between the two great oceans which bound this 
continent. 

But where are any indications to be seen of a design on 
the part of the existing President of the United States to 
despoil his native country of its dearly-bought freedom ? 
Where is the large mercenary army which he has assem- 
bed for the execution of his own fell enterprise ? Where 
lias he located a military force large enough to be wielded 
for the carrying into effect of this alarming coup d'etat? 
Which one of our rich and populous cities is he first to 
occupy with his invading army ? But let me ask, with 
all gravity, when did this much reviled public servant 
seriouslj T transcend the limits of his official power, either 
in war or in peace? When did he fail on any proper oc- 
casion to show that he was resolved to keep the military 
subordinate to the civil power? When did he play the 
part of tyrant or oppressor toward any man whatever, 
either in war or peace ? On what precise day in the cal- 
endar was it that he marched a military force to the 
American Capitol, in imitation of the noted examples of 
a Cromwell or a Napoleon the First, and forcibly expelled 
the American Senators and Representatives of the nation 
from the seats of legislation ? 

I did not vote for General Grant in the late Presiden- 
tial election. I have but a slight personal acquaintance 
with him. It is, I think, quite probable that we shall 
never know each other much better than we now do. I 



O/VSKKT <>V REMINISCENCE^. 463 

am as little authorized, therefore, to speak for him on this 
subject as any other man now in Washington city. But 
I have lived a good while, and I sometimes natter myself 
that I have not lived altogether in vain. I know some- 
thing of men and of their probable motives of action. I 
have mingled freely with the public men of my genera- 
tion, and have not, perhaps, been oftener wrong in my 
estimation of human character than some others of whom 
T could make mention. I have been stationed for three 
months past in Washington city, and have been a diligent 
observer of all the " signs of the times " here displayed to 
view ; and I now declare my firm and rooted conviction 
that there is not a man to be found upon the soil of 
America more averse to Ca^sarism, as it is called, than 
the present much-denounced President of the United 
States. I am confident that if he had a thousand 
lives he would freely risk them all in defense of 
our republican institutions. I am quite as confident, 
too, that no American patriot now living has more respect 
for the example and character of Washington than has 
this eminent personage. As to running for the Presi- 
dency a third time, I am well satisfied that he has neither 
said nor done aught to justify a suspicion that he has the 
least wish to be elected to the Presidency for an addi- 
tional term. This cry of Cresarism is not now raised for 
the first time. The ears of the " Father of his Country " 
were assailed with the same insulting sounds, and so were 
those of Andrew Jackson. But the enemies of the prin- 
ciples of progress and the foes of reconstruction should 
bear in mind that there is no clause of the Constitution 
forbidding any President running and being elected for a 
third term ; that the important and striking fact that the 
framers of the Constitution inserted in that instrument 
no prohibitory clause as to this matter is pretty conclu. 
sive proof that they were of opinion that it was at least 



4()4 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

possible that an exigency might thereafter arise in which 
it would become needful that a President, already twice 
elected, should allow his name to be used a third time in 
order to defeat the advancement to power of some man of 
dangerous purposes and principles; that even the exam- 
ple of the venerated Washington can be hardly regarded 
as more sacred than the Constitution itself, which he 
several times swore to support ; and that no man who 
properly estimates the character of this great and good 
man can at all doubt that he would himself have run as 
a Presidential candidate again had he supposed that his 
submitting to such a patriotic sacrifice was necessary in 
order to defeat the aspirations of some wily demagogue 
of his own time, known to be in close alliance with the 
Jacobinical faction then reigning in France, and which 
he had himself seen so menacingly represented in the per- 
son of the notorious G-enet. 

If the enemies of reconstruction and the constitutional 
amendments wish not to encounter General Grant's here- 
tofore invincible popularity in the Presidential field, com- 
mon prudence should teach them to change their present 
political attitude. Let them cease their endeavors to re- 
organize the rickety and discredited Democratic party for 
the next Presidential contest. Let them openly and 
frankly accept the results of the war. Let them cease 
that constant bickering about trilies, that ill-natured 
snarling over the ordinary and necessary exercises of 
power on the part of the Government. Let them make 
a manly and liberal allowance for results which no com- 
mingled, wisdom and virtue could possibly have averted. 
Let them rise up above the arts of low decrial and cal- 
umny. Let them evince a proper regard for the honor of 
their country and the dignity of free institutions as rep- 
resented by those into whose hands the people themselves 
have committed for a short term the symbols of official 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 46§ 

power. Let them assume a position with prompt and 
manly frankness which will at once extinguish the suspi- 
cions which their own indiscreet conduct has engendered 
that a secret alliance is now existing between the open 
supporters of secession in the South and the now reor- 
ganizing Northern Democracy for the prosecution of 
another joint struggle for the reins of Federal power. 
Let all the opponents of the Administration, among 
whom there are doubtless many honest and patri- 
otic men, for decency's sake, as well as for reasons 
of commendable policy, discourage those who were 
notoriously the most prominent instigators of the 
late civil war from taking a leading and conspicuous part 
in upholding what they choose to call the Conservative 
cause. But above all things, let Jeff Davis be kept at 
home for a year or two so that he no more play the part 
of a blustering Goliath, which he is now doing, to the re- 
gret of all patriotic men, and to the alarm of some of the 
friends of the Union. While I am now writing the news 
is confirmed to the friends of the peace and tranquillity 
of the National Union that this political maniac has again 
broken loose from his accustomed keepers and is moving 
through the land with all the dangerous fury of the 
canine species at this fearful period of the year. That 
voice which no popular assemblage east or west of the 
Cumberland mountains in Tennessee would be pleased to 
hear has been provoked to new utterances on Virginia 
soil, and has been heard to reverberate among the hills 
and valleys of a region heretofore noted for its quietude 
and decency. How majestically must this persecutor of 
Stonewall Jackson and Joe Johnston have thundered at 
Montgomery White Sulphur Springs last week, ac- 
cording to the account which has reached us, while 
he was crying havoc ! and letting loose the dogs of war 
once more upon a blood-stained and devastated land, 
30 R 



466 CASKET OP REMINiSCENCES. 

eructating his factious nonsense amid the torrid fumes 
of ill-distilled whisky rising up thick and foggily 
from scorched and blistered stomachs and the 
dark and ominous clouds of tobacco smoke ascending 
cheerily from aristocratic cigar and plebeian cornhusk 
pipe! How murkily did he manage to mourn over a 
cause which he had murdered in cold blood ! How chiv- 
alrously did he reassert his right again to war upon his 
country's peace and happiness whenever his self-love and 
insatiable ambition shall again prompt him to put on 
the habiliments of war! How mellifiuously did he chant 
the glories of those " unreconstructed" ladies of the South 
upon whose influence he seems chiefly to rely for putting 
in movement a new scheme of rebellion ! Well, really, if 
this foolish game is forever to be played by simpletons 
and unappeasable factionists, and if a new war cry is to 
be raised upon the sacred soil of Virginia, it seems to be 
hiffh time that the friends of the Union and the Consti- 
tution should everywhere unite to put down by one glo- 
rious and patriotic effort all who seek to bring upon us 
again the unnameable horrors of a bloody civil war. 

However serious may be the misconstruction to which 
Mr. Davis' present conduct, and that of those with whom 
he is apparently in combination, may expose many of the 
long-suffering citizens of the South, it is, nevertheless, 
absolutely true that he is at this moment the representa- 
tive of no considerable class of our Southern people ; and 
it would therefore be alike cruel and unjust to hold others 
responsible for his unseemly and incoherent ravings. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 467 



APPENDIX. 



CJ]SARISM 



There Lave been so many allusions made in the preced 
ing Reminiscences to Ccesarism, that it has been judged 
proper to publish in this form a review of Napoleon's 
"Caesar," which made its first appearance about a year 
before the commencement of the Reminiscences them- 
selves.— H. 8. F. 

HISTORY OF JULIUS (AESAR, BY LOUIS NAPOLEON 
BUONAPARTE. 



HENRY S. FOOTE. 



Ten years have now run their varied course of good 
and evil since something like a formal notification was 
o'iven to the world that a new Life of Julius Csesar would 
soon emanate from the French Imperial press ; this work 
was to be dignified with the name of History — the ear- 
liest copies of which, adorned with all suitable emblazon- 
ry, were to be transmitted to the crowned potentates of 
earth, respectively, after which the untitled multitudes 
of all countries under the sun would be graciously 
allowed to read, to admire, and to do fitting homage to 
the lessons of genuiue Napoleonic wisdom which were ex- 
pected to be embodied in the volumes that were now al- 
most ready to take their place in the select libraries of the 



463 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

learned and the tasteful. An announcement so unusual 
was doubtless productive of some effect in certain quar- 
ters, and it is probable that many individuals, both in 
Europe and in America, felt more or less of a certain 
curiosity touching the contents of a work whose advent 
had been so pompously heralded. 

Caesar and his achievements — his daring and unscru- 
pulous ambition — his criminal and vaulting aspirations, 
and his bloody, but deserved death, had constituted for 
nearly nineteen centuries a favorite subject of dissertation 
and comment. These matters had, indeed, to some extent 
become of late years a little trite and unsavory to many, 
and under ordinary circumstances would not have been 
likely to provoke to a renewed discussion of them any 
mind at all original in its cast, and capable of grappling 
with a healthful and effective energy the great questions 
of every kind daily rising to view in this age of progress 
and enlightenment. Yet it can not be justly denied that 
there is much in the example of Caesar and his bloodily 
triumphant career as a destroyer of civil liberty to enkindle 
something of a peculiar sympathy in the bosom of such as 
distrust the capacity of man for self-government, and who 
regard it as in the order of Providence to commission cer- 
tain persons, supposed to be embued with a wisdom far 
beyond the reach of all ordinary mortals, to take imperial 
charge of all the concerns of municipal government, and 
to guide and regulate the whole body of the untaught and 
unteachable rabble of mankind for their own happiness 
and advancement. It is quite certain that no civil tyrant 
who has yet figured upon the page of history, since Caesar 
ceased to live, has failed to select him as his idolized ex- 
emplar; and it seems quite probable that in all future 
ages the Cromwells, the Napoleons, and the rest, will be 
found, as it has been in the past, so far, at least, as it may 
chance to be in their power, to follow most trustingly 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 469 

in the footsteps of their grand prototype, expecting, of 
course, to shelter themselves from deserved odium under 
the authority of one whom they are themselves so much 
interested in exalting beyond the reach of criticism or 
censure, and in surrounding him with an adscititious 
splendor in which they may be understood as more or 
less participating. 

But the Life of Julius Caesar had been already written 
more than once, and in a manner altogether satisfactory, 
by authors of acknowledged distinction ; and all that 
remained to us of his writings had undergone repeated 
translation, so that it was not clearly seen what more was 
capable of being said or written in illustration of such vir- 
tues as he might be supposed to have possessed, or in ex- 
position of such crimes as he was understood to have per- 
petrated. It could not but be well known to many, also, 
that the celebrated Charles V, who took Caesar for his 
model, had left behind him a copy of the famous Com- 
mentaries, lavishly bespread with many characteristic 
marginal notes ; that the Sultan Soliman, his cotemporary, 
had caused Europe to be ransacked for all the copies of 
the Commentaries then extant, with a view to the careful 
collection of them, and the publication of a corrected copy 
in the Turkish language ; that Henry IV of France had 
himself o;iven a French version to the two first books of 
the Commentaries ; that Louis XIII had translated the 
two last, and that these four, having been tacked together, 
had undergone publication at the Louvre in 1630. Nor 
had it been yet forgotten that Louis XIV had, with a 
view to giving evidence of his own scholarship, translated 
anew the first book of the Commentaries, (in rather clumsy 
French, it must be confessed ;) that the great Conde, him- 
self of royal extraction, was well known to be a diligent 
student of the campaigns recorded in the Commentaries, 
and had been the special patron of a new edition of the 



470 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

whole work, presented in a French dress b}^ Nicholas 
Perrot d'Ablanconrt ; that the eccentric Christina, Queen 
of Sweden, had sought immortality by coupling her name 
with that of the renowned " veni, vidi, vici " conqueror in 
a singular treatise entitled " Reflections on the Life and 
Actions of Caesar ; " and, to close this splendid catalogue 
of illustrious names, that the First Napoleon, when at 
St. Helena, had done homage to the genius of his acknowl- 
edged prototype by dictating a volume, afterward pub- 
lished in Paris, under the name of " Precis des guerres de 
Cesar." 

Now, considering these facts and others of a kindred 
character, there would seem really not to have been any 
special literary necessity for the laborious preparation and 
industrious promulgation of the two cumbrous volumes 
which we now hold under critical examination — to be 
followed, it may be, hereafter, by another brace of them 
of a similar complexion and character. 

We do not hesitate to say, and we say it with much 
deliberation, too, that the first of these boasted volumes 
is, in a mere historic point of view, little more than a loose 
and indigested compendium of facts connected with the 
rise and progress of the Roman State and people, the most 
important of which are to be found set forth in works far 
less voluminous, and in a style far more attractive ; while 
the second volume is occupied almost entirely with a very 
free and oftentimes a highly inaccurate translation of cer- 
tain books of the Commentaries ; except that the imperial 
author has condescended, here and there, to favor us with 
his own opinion upon certain disputed facts, with the 
reasons upon which these opinions purport to be bottomed, 
most of which opinions are manifestly overstrained and 
ludicrously fanciful. 

If there be any who are at a loss to understand what 
precise objects the celebrated ex-Emperor of the French had 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 471 

in view in the publication of this work, they will see these 
very distinctly presented in the singular preface with 
which it is accompanied ; an extract or two from which 
will be here brought forward : 

" When extraordinary acts attest an eminent genius, 
what is more contrary to good sense than to ascribe to 
him all the passions and sentiments of mediocrity f What 
more erroneous than not to recognize the pre-eminence of 
those privileged beings who appear in history from time to 
time, like luminous beacons, dissipating the darkness of 
their epoch, and throwing light upon the future ? To 
deny this pre-eminence would, indeed, be to insult human- 
ity, by believing it capable of submitting, long and vol- 
untarily, to a domination which did not rest on true 
greatness and incontestible utility. Let us be logical 
and we shall be just." 

It is not at all difficult to see that the sort of logic here 
so commendingly alluded to is nothing but the odious jus 
divinum in a somewhat new and beguiling form ; such 
logic as may be conveniently applied to all the systems 
of despotism heretofore existing on earth; for but few of 
these can be mentioned in which time had not lent its 
hollow and unmeaning sanction to usurped, power, or in 
which oft-repeated but unsuccessful attempts to overthrow 
a hated tyranny had not taught long-oppressed and soul- 
tprpified millions the policy of apparent acquiescence. 

Let us return to this bold and out-spoken preface: "But 
by what sign," continues the author, " are we to recognize 
a man's greatness ? By the empire of his ideas, when his 
principles and his system triumph in spite of defeat. Is it 
not, in fact, the peculiarity of genius to survive destruc- 
tion and to extend its empire over future generations ? 
Caesar disappeared, and his influence predominates even 
more than during his life." 

Who can, after reading the above extracts, doubt that 



472 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

the prime object of the imperial author was to aid, so far 
as it might be in his power to do so, the diffusion and eter- 
nization of what he understood to be the principles and sys- 
tem of Caesar ? With Caesar's name is embodied indissolubly 
the idea of usurpation and the destruction of republican 
freedom. Caesar was the most adroit and successful dem- 
agogue or adulator of the people that the world has known. 
Caesar believed implicitly that he was horn to rule over 
the credulous and confiding multitude, and regarded it as 
justifiable, on his part, to employ any means whatever 
which might seem most likely to attain the gratification 
of his ambition. Caesar did succeed in the establishment 
of an irresponsible despotism. When he was taken off by 
assassination, he had thoroughly concentrated all civil 
and military power in his own hands. There was no 
longer freedom of speech, or freedom of action in any part 
of the earth held under Roman authority. It seems to us 
to be about the easiest thing in the world to understand 
what was Caesar's " system," and what were his "princi- 
ples ;" and it would be quite as easy to define the " sys- 
tems " and " principles " of those who have attempted to 
tread the pathway, first blazed out by him, to imperial 
domination at the expense of popular liberty!! 

In further illustration of this matter, we cite the follow- 
ing additional extract : " The preceding remarks suffi- 
ciently explain the aim I have in view in writing this 
history. This aim is to prove that when Providence raises 
up such men as Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon it is 
to trace out to peoples the path they ought to follow ; to stamp 
with the seal of their genius a new era ; and to accom- 
plish, in a few years, the labor of centuries. Happy the 
people who comprehend and follow them ! woe to those 
who misunderstand them ! They do as the Jews did, 
they crucify their Messiah ; they are blind and culpable ; 
blind, for they do not see the impotence of their efforts to 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 47^ 

suspend the definitive triumph of good ; culpable, for they 
only retard progress by impeding its prompt and fruitful 
application." 

He continues : " In fact, neither the murder of Osesar, 
nor the captivity of St. Helena, has been able to destroy 
two popular causes overthrown by a league which dis- 
guised itself under the mask of liberty. Brutus, by de- 
stroying Caesar, plunged Rome into the horrors of civil 
war ; he did not prevent the reign of Augustus, but he 
rendered possible those of Nero and Caligula. The ostra- 
cism of Napoleon by confederated Europe has been no 
more successful in preyenting the empire from being resus- 
citated; and, nevertheless, how far are we from the great 
questions solved, the passions calmed, and the legitimate 
satisfactions given to people by the first empire." 

We would, indeed, like very much to know to what 
peoples the legitimate satisfactions spoken of as having 
been enjoyed under the boasted First Empire were really 
imparted; and we are curious to know, also, the precise na- 
ture of these same satisfactions, and whether similar 
satisfactions of the same legitimate character accrued to 
any people on earth from the establishment of that mon- 
strous system of tyranny called the Second Empire, and 
which was recently brought to an end so disastrously and 
bloodily as the natural result of a most ill-advised and 
unpardonable war. We opine that the melancholy exile 
of Chiselhurst, though even not yet effectually cured of 
the insane and selfish ambition which has cursed his 
whole life, if he ever now ventures to glance over this 
over-wrought and ostentatious preface of his, must blush 
and blush deeply, too, over the evidences therein embodied 
of his own ineffable vanity and shallowness.^ 

* This article was written and publishedtibout ten days before Louis 
Napoleon's <U\-itl». 



474 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

Perhaps, taking all the attendant circumstances into 
consideration, we should not be altogether justified in 
avowing any strong feeling of surprise that the French 
Emperor should have felt it to be a part of his special mis- 
sion into this breathing and bustling world to write just 
such a book as this in vindication of the cause of usurpation,. 
He was, at the time that these volumes made their appear- 
ance at the very zenith of his ill-gotten power. Four 
hundred thousand men in arms — a much larger number 
than Julius Caesar himself had ever commanded — acknowl- 
edged him as their military chief. He was living in the 
palaces of an ancient and once powerful dynasty, and 
thousands of slavish, gorgeously arrayed courtiers poured 
every moment into his ears the streams of an insincere 
and dishonoring adulation. All Europe stood agaze at 
the scene of grandeur which surrounded him, and some 
who ought to have known better allowed themselves to be 
recognized as the admirers of his wisdom, and the approv- 
ers of his policy. Like Caesar, and the First Napoleon, he 
had grown opulent by the pillage of the public treasury of 
a generous and confiding people, and from the same source 
he had enriched the whole body of his kinsmen and depen- 
dants. He had been engaged in several great wars, and, 
thanks to the valor of his soldiers and the ability of his 
generals, he had come forth from each of them triumphant. 
He was the acknowledged champion and protector of the 
venerated head of the ancient Catholic Church. He had 
added new dignity to the throne which he had usurped, 
by inter-marriage with a lady of the most splendid beauty 
and of the rarest graces and accomplishments. A son had 
been born to him of this marriage, who was already the 
recognized inheritor of an imperial greatness, which shal- 
low and unthinking multitudes were everywhere predict- 
ing would equal the domination of the Roman Caesars in 
duration, and be far more glorious. He had by arts of 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 475 

various kinds thus far managed to keep the passions of a 
mercurial and easily-excited people in a state of compar- 
ative quietude and repose. He bad made more than one 
literary experiment before, ere he became the incumber 
of a throne; and productions of his pen, once laughed at 
for their folly, the sagacious critics of the world had at 
last found out to be written with more than Ciceronian 
elegance, and replete with practical wisdom. 

The territorial expanse of the old world had been found 
too narrow to supply a suitable arena for the display of 
his enterprising and all-conquering genius ; and he had 
sought increase of personal glory, and a new field for his 
ideas of imperial domination beyond the rolling ocean. 
He had just dispatched a large army to unhappy Mexico, 
and demanded the erection there of a new imperial throne, 
upon which was soon to be seated, under his own special 
tutelage and control, a promising scion of the time-hon- 
ored Hapsburg family. It has been whispered in certain 
circles that he had already contemplated the speedy exten- 
sion of his boasted " system and principles " to the natal 
soil of Washington. How true this may be we shall at 
present hazard no conjecture. If he had established 
twenty regal governments in North America he would, 
in doing so, have been only following the example of 
Julius Caesar whilst he sojourned in Gaul, and that of the 
First Napoleon whilst at the head of his conquering 
armies. 

Under the circumstances just specified, what more 
natural occurrence could have taken place than the sending 
forth from the French imperial press, in 1862, of such a 
book as that which we are noticing, as a sort of avanU 
courier of the momentous world-revolution which it was 
expected to usher in ? 

Whilst contemplating the execution of this herculean 
task, it was doubtless regarded as a fact of no inauspicious 



476 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

augury that but few of the occupants of thrones had, 
either in ancient or modern times, been known to attempt 
authorship upon a grand scale ; for the chances of acquir- 
ing renown in any field of human labor must of necessity 
bear some proportion to the fewness of those who come 
forward as competitors for the coveted prize. Besides, 
it is undoubtedly true, as has been abundantly proved in 
the present instance, that a writer of history, or of any 
other literary work, if he be a royal personage, at least so 
long as he shall be able to hold in his grasp the reins of 
authority, will be far less exposed to the shafts of criticism 
than would any private individual. If we have not been 
misinformed on this subject, his Imperial Majesty, before 
he allowed these precious historic volumes to see the light 
in France, put in action protective machinery of a very 
effective character to savemis own well-earned fame from 
unjust and illiberal attack. We recollect to have heard 
of at least one enterprising French pamphleteer who had 
to ily with much precipitation beyond the Gallic confines 
for having referred to this same book and its imperial 
author in language deemed irreverent, and had this exper- 
iment upon the patience of Majesty been once or twice 
repeated there is no knowing what a fearful combustion 
might have been produced among the literary coteries of 
the Freuch capital. When the lordly inhabitant of a 
regal palace condescends to enlighten the world upon 
grave questions of state, it is but proper perhaps that he 
should be listened to with more than ordinary patience. 
Such at least has been the way of mankind in all past 
ages. The famed tyrant of Syracuse is known to have 
been much praised in the literary circles of Greece until 
his noted falling out with Plato, the then chief of the 
world of letters ; Frederic the Great, of Prussia, was recog- 
nized as an elegant writer of French, and a profound phil- 
osopher into the bargain, until he threw into prison his 



CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 477 

once admired friend, Voltaire ; and the adulators who 
thronged the golden palace of Nero, (some of whom were 
not altogether undistinguished in the ranks of literature,) 
pronounced him a better writer of poetry than either Vir- 
gil or Horace, and more polished and vigorous as a com- 
poser of prose than Livy or Tully ; and even the pure- 
minded and erudite Quintilian, whilst he saw in the hands 
of Domitian the uplifted scourge of imperial authority, 
deemed it politic to say of this monster that he would cer- 
tainly have been the greatest of poets {maximum poetarum,) 
but that the Gods had found it necessary to burden him 
with the cares of state. 

In regard to the particular style in which the history 
of Julius Ceesar is written, there is not a great deal either 
to commend or censure. It is more a compilation than a 
history ; and there is but little which can justly lay claim 
to originality, either in phrase or sentiment. It does not 
at all resemble the famous commentaries, either in simple 
dignity of expression or in easy and graceful flow of dic- 
tion. It is as an artistic production decidedly below 
mediocrity ; its style is exceedingly rugged and cumbrous ; 
it is remarkable for neither vigor, sprightliness, nor per- 
spicuity ; and it exhibits a continual straining after effect 
which is positively disgusting. It is ostentatious without 
impressiveness ; magniloquent and high-sounding without 
the least approach to true grandeur, either of sentiment 
or phraseology. 

But we shall not dwell upon this head ; there are mat- 
ters of much higher moment which remain to be discussed. 
For, be it known, that we are far from thinking that the 
world should feel any great surprise at our imperial biog- 
rapher's deficiencies as a writer. It would have been sim- 
ply absurd for anyone to expect him to ecpial Thucydides, 
Livy, or Tacitus as a delineator of grave, historic events, 
or to place himself upon a footing with the best descrip- 



478 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

tive authors that France or England has produced in 
modern times. His early education is understood not by 
any means to have been such as was best calculated to 
give development and expansion to the higher intellectual 
faculties, and for many years anterior to the fall of Louis 
Phillippe he is well known to have led a loose and ram- 
bling life, eminently unpropitious to sound moral culture 
or healthful mental training. 

Our objections to the ex-Emperor of the French, as a 
writer of history, are of a far graver and deeper character 
than has yet been more than intimated. He seems to us, 
in these same volumes of his, to have attempted the per- 
version of truth in many important instances, and to have 
assailed with unsparing virulence many of the noblest 
patriots and sagest statesmen of whom antiquity can 
boast, for the attainment of purposes merely selfish in 
their character. He has selected Julius Caesar as the sub- 
ject of exorbitant and unmixed commendation, and in- 
vested him with attributes to which he never had a just, 
claim, hoping that he would be able in this way to con- 
ceal the hideousness of his unparalleled, usurpation, and 
rescue from just odium also certain others who, in imita- 
tion of his example, have attained supreme power by per- 
fidy, by corruption, and by bloodshed ; calculating doubt- 
less that by pursuing this course, he would have it in his 
power to beguile the mass of mankind into a voluntary 
and disgraceful abandonment of the most sacred rights of 
freedom. 

We do not propose here to enter into a copious citation 
of particulars in order to establish the charges which we 
have preferred. We have not sufficient space, nor is it at 
all necessary that we should do so. 

That Julius Caesar was one of the most intellectual men 
that the world has yet known we have never for a moment 
doubted. Even Cicero himself says of him, in one of his 



tUskE* OF REMINISCENCES. 47 ( .* 

famous Philippics, when applauding Brutus and his brother 
conspirators for having put him to death : " In that man 
were combined genius, method, memory, literature, pru- 
dence, deliberation, and industry. He had performed 
exploits in war which, though calamitous for the Repub- 
lic, were nevertheless mighty deeds. Having for man)' 
years aimed at being a king, he had, with great labor and 
much personal danger, accomplished what he intended. 
He had conciliated the ignorant multitude by presents, 
by monuments, by largesses of food, and by banquets; he 
had bound his own party to him by rewards, his adversa- 
ries by the appearances of clemency. Why need I say so 
much on such a subject? He had already brought a free 
rity, partly b y fear, partl y by suffering, int o a habit of servi - 
tude^ 

We need not refer to the celebrated declaration of Quin- 
tilian, that "Caesar talked with the same vigor that he 
follght.' , Nor is it important that the celebrated parallel 
drawn by Sal lust between Caesar and Cato should be more 
than incidentally referred to here. We freely admit that 
nature had lavishly bestowed the choicest of her gifts 
upon the extraordinary man of whom we are speaking. 
Nov are we permitted to doubt that he possessed all the 
literary and scientific accomplishments known to the age 
in which he flourished. 

As a commander of armies, it is probable that he has 
never been equaled. As an adroit and successful party 
leader, he has certainly never been surpassed. No one 
was ever more profoundly skilled in the art of managing 
men. But other questions remain to be solved. Was he 
a patriot in the truest and fullest sense of the word ? Did 
he prefer his country's peace and welfare to his own per- 
sonal advancement? Was he a sincere believer in the 
capacity of man for self-government ? Was he a true 
respecter of popular rights and of republican institutions? 



480 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

Was lie a man of probity and uprightness ? Did lie pos- 
sess in an eminent degree the domestic and social virtues? 
Did he prefer the society of virtuous and patriotic men to 
that of the licentious and the profligate ? Did he seek 
civil promotion only by fair and patriotic and honorable 
expedients? Is it fortunate for the Roman government 
and people that Ca?sar was born, and flourished, and ac- 
quired imperishable personal renown ? Has his example 
as a public man and as a private citizen been, on the 
whole, advantageous to the human race in general, or the 
reverse ? We feel confident that to none of these queries 
can a favorable response be given without seriously vio- 
lating the truth of history. 

In support of this view of the matter, it will not be 
necessary to go beyond those details embodied in the vol- 
umes of his latest biographer ; from whose pages we learn 
that Julius Caesar was born at Rome, in the six hundred 
and fifty-fourth year of the Republic, and that he was of 
an ancient and distinguished family. " On one side," says 
the History, "he claimed to be descended from Anchises 
and Venus: on the other, he was the nephew of the fa- 
mous Caius Marius, the husband of his aunt Julia." 
When Csesar was thirty-two years of age he delivered a 
funeral oration in honor of his aunt, and in that oration 
formally proclaimed this important genealogical fact, in 
hearing of a vast concourse of the Roman people. This 
circumstance, as unimportant as it may seem to many, 
indicated clearly enough his own conviction that he was 
himself born for empire, and his determination to seek 
p ower , as Marius had done before him, by doing homage 
to the feelings of the populace. His education was as well 
attended to as was then possible at Rome, and before he 
had attained to the years of manhood he enjoyed all the 
facilities possible to be supplied for acquiring a knowledge 
of the Creek language and literature. " He united," says 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 481 

the History, " to goodness of heart a high intelligence, 
to an invincible courage an enthralling eloquence, a won- 
derful memory, and unbounded generosity; finally, he 
possessed one rare quality — calmness under anger." - * 
"His tall stature, his rounded and well proportioned limbs, 
stamped his person with a grace that distinguished him 
from all others. He had black eyes, a piercing look, a pale 
complexion, a straight and high nose. His mouth small, 
and regular, but with rather thick lips, gave. a kindly ex- 
pression to the lower part of his face, whilst his breadth 
of brow betokened the development of the intellectual 
faculties. His face was full, at least in his youth ; for in 
his busts, doubtless made toward the end of his life, his 
features are thinner and bear marks of fatigue. He had a 
sonorous and penetrating voice, a noble gesture, and an 
air of dignity reigned over all his person." We learn 
further from the History, that he '• paid special attention 
to his person, carefully shaved, or plucked out his beard, 
and artistically brought his hair forward to the front of 
his head, which, in more advanced age, served to conceal 
his bald forehead. He was reproached with the affecta- 
tion of scratching his head with one linger only, so that 
he should not disarrange his hair. His toilet was refined; 
his toga was generally ornamented with a laticlavium, 
fringed down to the hands, and fastened by a girdle care- 
lessly tied about his loins ; a costume which distinguuished 
the elegant and effeminate youths of the period." * * 
* "He had a taste for pictures, statues, and jewels ; and 
in memory of his origin always wore on his ringer a ring 
on which was engraved the figure of an armed Venus." 

"Such," continues the imperial biographer, "was Caesar 
at the age of eighteen, when Sylla seized the dictatorship. 
Already he attracted all eye^ at Rome by his name, Ins 
intellect, his affable manners, which pleased men, and per- 
haps some women, too." 
31 R 



482 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

It is a little difficult to divine Low the royal bioprapher 
of Csesar should have felt it necessary so ostentatiously to 
parade some of these curious trivialities before the public 
eye, unless the reason of his doing so is to be found in the 
following extract from another page of his work: "Not 
satisfied with conciliating the good will of the people, Ca> 
sar won for himself the favor of the noblest dames of 
Rome; and notwithstanding his notorious passion for 
women, we Gan not but discover a political aim in his 
choice of mistresses, since all held by different ties to men 
who were then playing, or were destined to play, an im- 
portant part, He had important relations with Tertulla, 
the wife of Crassus ; with Mucia, wife of Pompey ; with 
Lollia, wife of Aulus Gabinius, who was consul in 696 ; 
with Postumia, wife of Servius Sulspicius, who was raised 
to the consulship in 703, and persuaded to join Cesar's 
party by her influence ; but the woman he preferred was 
Servilia, sister of Cato, and mother of Brutus, to whom, 
during his consulship, he gave a pearl valued at six mil- 
lions of sesterces (1,140,000 frances,or 45,600 pounds.) 
This connection throws an air of improbability (thinks 
our grave and sagacious historian,) over the reports then 
in circulation that Servilia favored an intrigue between 
him and her daughter Tertia, Was it by the intermedia- 
tion of Tertulla that Crassus was reconciled to Osesar? " 

These are truly extraordinary details to be presented, 
without a syllable of censure, by the imperial head of a 
family, who boasts himself to be a true devotee to the 
Christian faith, and from whom the world had a right to 
to demand, in an especial manner, an example of social de- 
cency, if not of elevated morality. If in connection with 
such facts as those just mentioned we take into consid- 
eration Caesar's famous dalliance in Alexandria with 
Cleopatra; his known intimacy with Mark Antony, the 
most profligate of mankind; with Clodius, on account of 



CASKET OE REMINISCENCES. 488 

whose suspected intimacy with his own wife, Pompeia, 
he had driven her from his house ; and even with the in- 
famous Catiline himself, a fact which his present august 
historian does not attempt to deny, we shall he prepared 
to place a proper estimate upon certain other remarkable 
particulars in Caesar's public career which are now to be 
runningly alluded to. 

In (380 or 681 Csesar was nominated by his friends to 
the office of pontiff, because, as is alleged, they thought 
it expedient that he should be "clothed with a sacred 
character." He seems to have taken no part in the servile 
war then raging. He was about the same period made 
military tribune, which gave him command of a thou- 
sand soldiers. In 676 he accompanied Aristius Vetus to 
Ulterior Spain in the capacity of questor. There he 
gained no marked distinction ; but it is recorded of him 
that whilst occupied with the duties of the questorship 
he went one day to the famous temple of Hercules, at 
Grades, as Hannibal and Scipio had done before him. "At 
the sight of the statue of Alexander he deplored with a 
sigh that he had done nothing at the age when this great 
man had conquered the world." On his return to Rome 
he sustained, in conjunction with Cicero, the famous Ma- 
nillian law which enabled Pompey, then in the zenith of 
his popularity, to supplant Lucullus in the managment 
of the Mithridatic war. He had already conceived the 
project, afterward so adroitly executed, of winning the 
confidence and frindship of Pompey with a view to the 
advancement of his own fortune, in a lew years to be real- 
ized in the formation of the first Triumvirate. In 687 he 
was chosen curator of the Appian way. Two years sub- 
sequent he was made curule cedile. En this last office he in- 
curred vast expenses, and became overwhelmingly in- 
volved in debt. It was at this precise period that lie 
ventured to test the state of popular feeling in Rome in 



484 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

regard to his uncle Marius, having evidently made ap 
his mind to run the same daring and sanguinary career 
should it become necessary to the gratification of his ambi- 
tion. He restored the trophies of Marius which had been 
overturned by Sylla, and in the night time had them placed 
in the Capitol. In 690 Ca?sar, acting in the capacity of 
Judex questionnis, sat upon the trial of Catiline, charged 
with the murder of M. Marius Gratidianus, and acquitted 
him. In 691 Osesar openly supported Catiline for the 
consulship against Cicero and others of the noblest pa- 
triots in Rome. In explanation of his censurable conduct 
on this occasion his present imperial laudato?- says : " In a 
spirit of opposition he supported all that could hurt 
his enemies and favor a change of system." How could 
Catiline himself have done worse? Within the next 
year or two he became the zealous supporter of an Agra- 
rian law, and of other measures looking to the benefit of 
the provinces; and was evidently increasing in popular- 
ity every day. In 692 the Catiline conspirators were 
brought to trial before the Semite, condemned and exe- 
cuted, Caesar opposing the infliction of capital punishment 
upon them, and making a bold and energetic speech on 
the occasion. Suspected by the Roman Knights, who sur- 
rounded the Capitol at the time in arms, his life was saved 
alone by the magnanimous interposition of Cicero. At 
this stage of his history our imperial author interposes a 
well-known anecdote, in these words: "A singular inci- 
dent happened, in the midst of these debates, to show to 
what point Caesar had awakened the people's suspicions. 
At the most animated moment of the discussion a letter 
was brought to him. He read it with eagerness. Cato 
and other senators, supposing it to be a message from one 
of the conspirators, insisted upon its being read to the 
Senate, Caesar handed the letter to Cato, who was seated 
near him. The latter saw it was a love-letter from his 



GASKET OF REMINISCENCES, fc85 

sister Servilia, and throw it back indignantly, crying out, 
' There! keep it drunkard !■'. " 

In 692 Caesar was Pretor-urbanus, and during his occu- 
pancy of that office became more and more closely allied 
to Pompey. Scenes of great turbulence now ensued, in 
which Caesar and Cato, as leaders of opposing parties, 
once or twice had serious personal collisions. From 698 
to 695 Caesar was pro-praetor to Spain. When about set- 
ting out for his province, his creditors, whose claims 
amounted altogether to ,£200,000, attempted to have him 
arrested, and it seems that he would have been compelled 
to submit to this humiliation but for the kindness of 
Crassus, who, on being applied to, advanced to Caesar 
enough to discharge all his pressing liabilities. 

Such being the desperate condition of his fortunes, the 
following anecdote will not at all surprise us : On Cesar's 
journey to Spain he halted for a few hours at a wretched 
village amid the Alps, when some of his officers having 
inquired of him whether he thought that even in this 
remote and sequestered place there were solicitations and 
rivalries for office, he answered: "I would rather be the 
first among these savages than second in Rome." Truly 
the grand Cresaro-Napoleonic "fixed idea" of imperial 
sovereignty was now rapidly cropping out ! 

During his sojourn in Spain Cresar is stated in the His- 
tory to have "amassed a rich booty, which enabled him 
to reward his soldiers and to pay considerable sums into 
the treasury without being accused of peculation or of 
arbitrary acts." Behold him now on the way to opulence 
and power! He returns to Rome, stands for the consul- 
ship and is elected. This result, as our historian conh 
was mainly owing to the secret compact then Bet on foot 
by Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, in accordance with the 
terms of which the Republic was t<» he in future ruled 
by their triple <-<>unst>ls. " The alliance," says the History, 



486 CASKET OF KEMINISCENCES. 

" which these three persons ratified by their oaths re- 
mained long a secret ; and it was only during Caesar's con- 
sulship that it, became a matter of public notoriety, from 
the unanimity they displayed in all their public resolu- 
tions," A more profligate and unprincipled combination 
than this is not known in history ; and yet our historian 
has not a word of censure to bestow on it. He confesses that 
this conspiracy was chiefly brought about by the manage- 
ment of Caesar, of whom he says : " In the midst of con- 
flicting opinions and interests, the presence of a man of 
steady purpose and deeply rooted convictions, and illustrious 
through recent victories, was without any doubt an 
event. He did not require long to form his estimate of 
the situation, and as he could not yet unite the masses 
for the realization of a grand idea, he thought to unite 
the chiefs by a common interest." Verily, this is an exceed- 
ingly frank declaration ! 

A highly significant and illustrative fact is mentioned 
in the History in connection with the consular election 
which has been just spoken of. "Among the candidates 
was Caius Lucceius. Caesar was desirous of attaching to 
his interest this person, who was distinguished alike by 
his writings and character, and who possessed of vast 
wealth had promised to make abundant use of it, for 
their common profit, in order to command the majority of 
votes in the centuries." The party opposed to Caesar, 
embracing the greater part of the Senate, deeply distrust- 
ing Caesar, and painfully apprehending the speedy over- 
throw of liberty, should Caesar not only succeed in being 
elected himself but also secure the choice of a colleague 
sure to be subservient to all his designs, though despairing 
of defeating the election of Csesar himself, were able b} r 
a great and energetic effort to stive to Caesar Bibulus for 
a colleague, who, it was known, would do all he could to 
save the Republic from present_ruin ; and for thus post- 



CASKET OP REMINISCENCES. 187 

polling for a few yearn the realization of the grand Im- 
perialistic Idea are soundly berated by our historian. 

Before he set out as pro-consul to the new theater which 
had been with some reluctance assigned him he took care 
to make all safe in his rear. At his instance, his brother 
consented to allow L. Piso, the father-in-law of Caesar, to 
be elected to the consulship, with A. G-abinius, the de- 
voted partisan of Pompey. " They were, in fact, desig- 
nated consuls on the I8th of October, in spite of the op- 
position of the Senate, and at the time of the accusation 
of Cato against Gabinius, Caesar," says the History, "found 
himself at the gates of Rome, invested with the imperium, 
and, according to Cicero's letters, at the head of numer- 
ous troops, composed apparently of veteran volunteers. 
He even remained there more than two months, in order 
to watch that his departure should not become the signal 
for the overthrow of his work." 

Again, says the History, " Caesar had skillfully taken 
precautions that his influence should be felt at Rome dur- 
ing his absence as much as the instability of the magis- 
tracy would permit. By the aid of his daughter Julia, 
whose charms and mental accomplishments captivated her 
husband, Caesar retained his influence over Pompey. By 
his favors to the son of Crass us, a young man of great 
merit, who was appointed his lieutenant, he assured him- 
self of his father. Cicero is removed, (by the efforts of 
Caesar's friend Clodius,) but Caesar will soon consent to 
his return, and will conciliate him again by taking into 
his favor his brother Quihtus. There remains the opposi- 
tion of Cato. Clodius undertakes to remove him under 
the pretense of an honorable mission. Finally all the men 
of importance who had any chance of obtaining employ- 
ment are gained to the cause of Caesar ; some even engage 
themselves to him in writing. lie can thus proceed to 
his province. Destiny is about to open a new path ; innuor- 



t88 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

t al glory awaits him beyond the Alps, and this glory 
reflected upon Rome will change the face of the world." 

And so, indeed, it was. Every successful campaign of 
Gsesar beyond the Alps strengthened him prodigiously at 
Rome. Military glory, that bane of all republics, soon 
made a single renowned chief too strong for his country's 
liberties. What Cromwell was lono- afterward in Eng:- 
land, what Napoleon the First was in France at a still 
later period, Caesar was soon to become in Rome. When 
the dangers which menaced the Roman government and 
people began to be clearly descried it was too late to pro- 
vide against them. Cresar, instigated by Mark Antony 
and Curio, at last passed the -Rubicon, and Roman freedom 
was forever lost I 

Nothing could be possibly more unprofitable than 
would prove on our part any attempt to follow our impe- 
rial historian into the examination which he has thought 
proper to institute between the rival claims of Pompey 
and Gsesar to control the fate of the republic, or to find 
out how far Caesar may have been supplied with grounds 
of complaint, more or less plausible, against those who 
were struggling to prevent his election to the consulship — 
so long as he should have an army under his command 
ready, at any moment, to place him in a position alto- 
gether beyond civil responsibility for any unauthorized 
acts he might perform. It may be, as urged in his behalf, 
that Caesar had some grounds of complaint against cer- 
tain public men in Rome, who were inimical to him and 
his advancement. It may be that the language of distrust 
and apprehension used by the consul Marcellusand others 
was of a nature to irritate his sensibilities and mortify 
his self-love. It may even be true that had he disbanded 
his army, as he had been ordered to do, he would have 
been subjected to trial for many of his unjustifiable acts 
of oppression and tyranny in Gaul. But his obvious duty 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 489 

as a patriotic citizen was to submit promptly and deco- 
rously to the orders of the Roman government and peo- 
ple, and when lie refused to do so, that instant he became 
a great public criminal ; and when lie marched an army 
in hostile array upon Roman soil for the purpose of put- 
ting down by force the existing government, and establish- 
ing in its stead an Imperial Despotism, he assumed an 
attitude which no sound-judging and just-minded man 
will ever think of upholding. The silly excuse set up in 
behalf of Caesar by his latest and least reliable biographer 
that he was " a man of fixed ideas," and that he was only 
the minister of destiny in giving to these a grand realiza- 
tion, is altogether too absurd to deserve formal refutation. 
We a^ quite willing to cite in this place, and without 
special comment thereupon, the very words employed by 
the illustrious biographer of Ca?sar himself, in justification 
of this part of his conduct. Here they are : 

"The moment for action had arrived, Caesar was re- 
duced to the alternative of maintaining himself at the head 
of his army, in spite of the Senate, or surrendering him- 
self to his enemies, who would have reserved for him the 
fate of the accomplices of Catiline who had been con- 
demned to death, if he were not, like the Gracchi Saturn- 
inns, and so many others, killed in a popular tumult. 
Here the question naturally offers itself, Ought not 
Csesar, who had so often faced death on the battle-field. 
have "-one to Rome to face it under another form, and to 
have renounced his command, rather than engage in a 
struggle which must throw the Republic into all the hor- 
rors of civil war? Yes, if by his abnegation he could save 
Rome from anarchy, corruption, and tyranny. Xo, if 
his abnegation would endanger what he had most at heart, 
the regeneration of the Republic. Csesar, like men of his 
temper, cared little for life, and still less for power forthe 
sake of power, but as the chief of the popular party, lie 



490 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

felt a great cause rise behind him, it urged him forward, 
and obliged him to conquer in spite of legality, the impre- 
cations of his adversaries, and the uncertain judgment of 
posterity. Roman society, in a state of dissolution, asked 
for a master ; oppressed Italy, for a representative of its 
rights ; the world, bowed under a yoke, for a Savior. 
Ought he by deserting his mission disappoint so many 
legitimate hopes, so many noble aspirations?*' 

The truth is that the course pursued by Caesar and his 
comrades in iniquity, after Pompey and his ill-organized 
army had fled from Brundusium to Greece, leaves not a 
shadow of doubt upon the motives and purposes of those 
who had now initiated that worst of all evils that can 
assail humanity— civil war ! For, returning to Rome, be 
broke into the public treasury and took out therefrom all 
the money of which lie stood in need; declared himself 
perpetual Dictator; and, after placing in the highest offi- 
cial positions some of the most notoriously corrupt and 
dissolute men to be found in Rome, he proceeded to Spain, 
where he prosecuted a tierce and sanguinary Avar with the 
Republic; and then, going into Greece, he encountered 
in arms another body of Roman soldiers, organized also 
under the authority of the Republic, with which he knew 
to be associated, (using the language of Cicero,) " the con- 
suls, and with these Cneius Pompeius, the light and glory 
of the Roman empire and people, all the men of consular 
rank whose health would allow them to share in the toils 
of war, the praetors and all men of praetorian rank, and 
the tribunes and the greater part of the Senate, all the 
flower of the youth of the city : " and, after the fatal bat- 
tle of Pharsalia had been fought, proceeding to Africa, in 
pursuit of Pompey, he dispatched the infamous Mark 
Antony to Italy, who there ravaged the whole land and 
committed such atrocities of every kind as have perhaps 
never been equaled in any other civilized country under 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 491 

the sun. Nor is this all, for when Caesar, after a long ab- 
sence, at last returned to Rome, so far was he from hold- 
ing Mark Antony responsible for all his abominable mis- 
deeds, that he again took him to his bosom as his most 
favored friend and counselor, and even raised him to the 
consulship as his own official colleague. 

It is to us truly astonishing that in an age so enlight- 
ened as the present one any man should have the 
effrontery to justify Julius Cassar in the perpetration of 
all these enormities, and that he should even go so far as 
to urge his example upon mankind as entitled to their 
respect and imitation. 

There is one other topic to which we propose to give a 
brief examination, It is urged by the author of the new 
History that Caesar is entitled to especial admiration by 
reason of his admitted clemency, compared with other mil- 
itary personages who might be mentioned. In this mat- 
ter he is only repeating the language of Sallust, who 
though an able and instructive writer, is well known to 
have been one of the most corrupt and profligate men 
then residing in Rome ; who had been even expelled from 
the Senate on account of grave offenses against the pub- 
lic morals committed by him ; and who owed his restora- 
tion to the membership of that body, which he had for- 
feited, to the kindness of Caesar, whom he had joined on 
the road from Arminium to lower Italy, when the scheme 
of invasion was already in actual progress. Whether this 
asserted clemency of Caesar was only seeming, and not 
real, as is declared by Cicero and others, may be decided 
by a consideration of the following well-attested facts: 

In his celebrated campaigns in Gaul, Germany, and 
Britain. — most of which were begun and prosecuted with- 
out any formal authorization from Koine, and in the 
progress of which he exercised powers such as did not 
legitimately appertain to his station — especially in the 



102 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 

making and unmaking kings at pleasure ; lie did undoubt- 
edly cause more blood to be ruthlessly shed and terrible 
sufferings to be undergone by the vanquisher! than had 
ever before dishonored the Roman eagles. We have space 
only for the presentation of a few prominent facts. 

1. After the last decisive battle with the Helvetians, 
he ordered 6,000 valiant soldiers, called Berbegenl on ac- 
count of their having attempted simply to avoid, by sep- 
arate flight, the disastrous fate of the great body of their 
countrymen, either to be put to death or sold as slaves. 

2. The Veneti, a maritime people, located upon the 
Northern coast of Gaul, and who are reported to have 
carried on an active and profitable commerce with Britain, 
whose sole fault, as alleged in the Commentaries, con- 
sisted in the detaining of several Roman deputies sent 
into their country by Caesar for supplies of corn, (which 
act of detention had only been resorted to in order to 
compel Caesar to send back their own hostages, demanded 
of them as the}^ conceived without any just authority,) 
were subjected to all the horrors of an unsparing war, 
both upon the land and upon the water. When at last 
crushed by superior force, in a battle which was begun at 
ten o'clock in the morning and continued until sunset, 
the Veneti having lost all their youth, all their principal 
citizens, and all their fleet, were forced to surrender at 
discretion. Here was a noble field for the display of 
moderation and magnanimity. Caesar's own Comment- 
aries confess the fact that in this state of things the con- 
queror caused the whole Venetan senate to be put to death, 
and the rest of the inhabitants to be sold for slaves. 

3. A battle was fought by Caesar with two German 
tribes, known as the Teucteri and the Usipetes, who were 
attacked by the Roman forces when they had no right to 
expect anything of the kind to occur, their chiefs, who 
had visited Caesar's camp as negotiators tor peace, having 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 498 

been forcibly detained by him. In the conflict which en- 
sued, the Germans having been completely surprised were 
thrown into utter confusion ; in the midst of which, 
Csesar, observing that the women and children who at- 
tended upon the camp of the enemy were Hying in every 
direction to a place of safety, ordered them to be indis- 
criminately massacred by the Roman soldiers. Our his- 
torian, so far from censuring the cruel and unmanly con- 
duct of Ceesar on this occasion, finds serious fault with the 
noble Cato for formally proposing in the Roman Senate 
that, Csesar, for this atrocious act of mingled perfidy and 
violence, should be at once surrendered up to the German 
people to atone for his outrageous violation of the laws of 
civilized warfare. It would be easy to multiply these 
sickening details ; but we forbear. We are content, to 
close this g;rim narrative of atrocities with a single addi- 
tional instance. 

4. In the year 701, while Csesar was south of the Alps, 
levying additional forces, and superintending political 
intrigues looking to his own future advancement to su- 
preme power, a general uprising of the eight millions of 
the noble Gallic nation against the tyrannical domination 
of Rome took place, under the auspices of an accomplished 
and high-sprited young chief, himself of royal extraction, 
by name Vercingetorix. After many scenes of bloody 
and exhausting strife, in which deeds of prowess were 
performed on either side as honorable as any which have 
ever adorned the annals of war, the superior generalship 
of C;esarandthe persevering energy of the Roman soldiery 
prevail, and the Gallic States and people are no longer 
willing to prosecute the war for national independence 
and freedom. The magnanimous conduct of Vercingetorix 
at this melancholy crisis is worthy of all praise. He con- 
vokes a council of his countrymen. He declares to this 
council that he has not undertaken this bloody and terri- 



494 CASKET OF KEMINISCENCES. 

ble war " out of personal interest, but for the achievement 
of the liberty of all." " True," he continues, " we must 
yield to fate. I place myself at the discretion of my 
fellow-citizens, and will allow myself, in order to appease 
the Romans, to be delivered to the enemy, dead or alive." 

A deputation bearing this proposition is sent at once to 
Caesar, who requires that the arms and the chiefs be de- 
livered to him. He places himself in front of his camp, 
inside of his intrenchinents ; the chiefs are brought ; the 
arms are laid down, and \^ercingetorix surrenders to the 
conqueror. " This valiant defender of Gaul," says the 
History, " arrives on horseback, clad in his finest arms, 
makes the circuit of Caesar's tribunal, dismounts, and lay- 
ing down his sword and his military ensigns, exclaims : 
* Thou hast vanquished a bravi man, thou, the bravest of all! " 

Before we notice the fate of this splendid young Gallic 
hero, we cop}' from the following from Commentaries : 
'•The prisoners were distributed by head, to each soldier, 
by way of booty, except the 20,000 who belong to the 
. Edui and A verm, and whom Caesar restored in the hope 
of bringing them back to his cause." 

As to Ctesar's treatment of Vercino-etorix, let Dio Cas- 
sins explain: "After this defeat, Vercingetorix, who had 
neither been taken or wounded, might have fled, but hop- 
ing that the friendship which had formerly bound him to 
Caesar would procure his pardon he repaired to the pro- 
consul, withoul having sent a herald to ask for peace, and 
appeared suddenly in his presence, at the moment he was 
sitting on his tribunal. His appearance inspired some 
fear, for he was tall of stature and had a very imposing 
aspect under arms. There was a deep silence ; the Gaulish 
chief fell at Caesar's knees, and implored him by pressing 
his bands, without uttering a word. This scene excited 
the pity of the bystanders, by the remembrance of Ver- 
cingetorix's former prosperity compared with his present 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 195 

misfortune. Gsesar, on the contrary, upbraided him with 
the recollections on which he had hoped for his safety. 
He compared with his recent struggle the friendship of 
which he reminded him, and by that means pointed out 
more vividly the odiousness of his conduct. And thus, 
far from being touched with his misfortunes at that mo- 
ment, he threw him into fetters, and afterward ordered 
him to be put to death, after having exhibited him in his 
triumph." 

There is not in all history, as we believe, an instance of 
greater cruelty and meanness. We know of nothing which 
can be regarded as even approximating to it in enormity, 
save the atrocious treatment of Montezuma and G-uata- 
mozin by that monstrous chief of bandits, Fernando 
Cortes himself; and yet, in remarking upon this disgusl ing 
transaction, our complaisant writer of history only says: 
"By acting thus Caesar believed that he was obeying state 
policy and the cruel customs of the time. It is to be re- 
gretted, for his glory, that he did not use toward Vercin- 
getorix, the illustrious Gaulish chief, the same clemency 
which, during the civil war, he showed toward the van- 
quished who were his fellow-citizens." 

Now we must confess, that after studying with dili- 
gence the history of Caesar's conduct toward his fellow-citi- 
zens during the civil war, we have met with no remark- 
able evidences of the much-boasted clemency. lie cer- 
tainly did not put to death all the Roman soldiers taken 
prisoners in battle; and on the contrary manifested on all 
occasions an eager desire to enlist them under his own 
banner. It is true that he did not rudely expel all the 
inhabitants of Italy who had originally opposed his at- 
tempted usurpation beyond the confines of thai beautiful 
peninsula; for had he done so he would have left, him- 
self but few subjects to be reigned over. It is also true 
that he extended a sort of insulting forgiveness to such 



496 CASKET OF REMINISCENCES, 

eminent Roman statesmen as he supposed might be trans- 
formed into supporters of his authority. But there were, 
even at the period of his decease, many nobly patriotic 
citizens of Rome who were forbidden to show their faces 
in the Eternal City. A very large majority of those who 
had openly allied themselves with Pompey and the Senate, 
in the great struggle for the preservation of liberty, were 
cruelly stripped of all the property they possessed by the 
ruffianly ministers of confiscation; and even the family of 
the illustrious commander were by no means excepted 
from the common fate; in proof of which the high testi- 
mony of Cicero is adducible in these heart-rending words : 
"Caesar came back from Alexandria, fortunate, as he seemed 
at least to think himself; but, in my opinion, no man can 
be fortunate who is not fortunate to the Republic. The 
spear* was set up in front of Jupiter Stator, and the 
property of Cneius Pompeius Magnus, (ah ! miserable me ! 
foi* even now that my tears have ceased to flow, my grief 
remains deeply implanted in my heart;)— the property, I 
say, of Cneius Pompeius, the great, was submitted to the 
pitiless auctioneer. On that occasion the State forgot its 
slavery, and groaned aloud; and although men's minds 
were enslaved, as everything was kept under by fear, still 
the groans of the Roman people were free/' 

Is further evidence desired of Caesar's tyrannous and un- 
feeling heart? Let a single well-known scene in Roman 
history suffice for this purpose. A few months anterior 
to the infliction of more than Roman justice upon this chief 
of culprits, repeated and earnest applications were being 
made in favor of exiled patriots whose presence in Rome 
was deemed unsafe for the upholders of despotism. The 
friends of Marcelius were particularly urgent in claiming 



♦The custom of erecting :i spear wherever an auction was held 
well known. 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCES. 497 

for bin) the privilege of returning to his native land, 
which he had so long adorned, in former years, by his 
virtues not less than his eloquence. At last the whole 
body of the Senate fell prostrate at the feet of the Dictator, 
and earnestly implored his pardon, not without the eopi- 
ous shedding of tears. 

Thus appealed to, the iron will of the vain-glorious 
tyrant was constrained, for very shame, to unbend itself. 
On this occasion it was that Cicero delivered his cele- 
brated oration, u Pro Marcello" in whichhe returned formal 
and elaborate thanks to Caesar for doing what, if he had 
not done, he would have forfeited the respect of all living 
men. Never would such a speech have been delivered if 
clemency had been a virtue of familiar practice with him 
to whom this special otter of gratitude was made '. 

A single additional remark will conclude our notice of 
the History of Julius Caesar by the ex-Emperor of the 
French. It is asserted in this work that at the time of 
Cresar's demise he was getting ready to restore the ancient 
free institutions of Rome. Never was a more unfounded 
statement hazarded. It is true, on the contrary, that at 
this very moment, not content with far more than ordi- 
nary kingly authority, he was contemplating his own 
formal investment with the regal diadem. 

Had Brutus and his noble associates not altogether de- 
spaired of the resurrection of Roman liberty, save by such 
means as they, with the fullest deliberation, adopted, 
never would they have imbrued their hands in the blood 
of the tyrant ! It were gross injustice to all these illus- 
trious men to think otherwise; men of whom Cicero so 
nobly spoke in the Roman Senate afterward, and employ- 
ing these memorable words concerning them, which will 
live as long as the Roman literature shall be known on 
earth : " If those deliverers of ours have taken themselves 
away out of our sight, still they have left behind them 



CASKET OF REMINISCENCE; . 

the example of their conduct. They have clone what no 

one else has done. Brutus pursued Tarquinius with war : 
who was a king when it was lawful for a king to exisi 
in Hour'. Spurius Cassius, Spurius Melius, and Marcus 
Manlius were all slain because they were suspected of 
aiming at regal power. These are the Hrsf men who have 
ever ventured to attack, sword in hand, a man who was 
not aiming at regal power, but actually reigning, and their 
action is not only of itself a glorious and god-like exploit, 
but it is also one put forth for our imitation ; especially 
as by it the} 7 have acquired such glory as appears hardly 
to be bounded by heaven itself. For although in the 
very consciousness of a glorious action there is a certain 
reward, still I do not consider immortality of glory a 
thing to be despised by one who is himself mortal." 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




0002b505b77 



